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Americans And Their Booze
America’s history with booze has always been a study in contrasts.
During the Revolution, alcohol was not merely ubiquitous, but nearly essential. Many of the great early revolutionary meetings were held in taverns. A number of the Founders — George Washington and Sam Adams most famously — brewed or distilled their own stuff, and Thomas Jefferson had one of the best cellars on the continent.
Alcohol continued to be integral during the early Republic. Taverns retained their status as meeting places for political organizations, and respectable statesmen were expected to fete their constituents on election day (James Madison once lost an election to the Virginia House of Delegates because his opponent threw a (much) better party). Moreover, booze was the cause of the first armed rebellions against the Federal Government. More on that another time.
What’s truly astounding is just how much alcohol Americans of the time drank. Due to a combination of a lack if potable water, misunderstandings about the health effects of alcohol, and he general deliciousness of the stuff, the average American “imbibed an average of 34 gallons of beer and cider, five gallons of distilled spirits, and one gallon of wine per person per year in 1790.”
Just 130 years later, of course, Americans completely banned the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcohol. It wasn’t a close thing, either: after passing the Senate and House, the 18th amendment went on to be ratified by 46 of he 48 states (Rhode Island and Connecticut being the only dissenters).
Though our current alcohol culture is far more moderate on average — Americans ranking in the middle of the pack when it comes to average annual consumption — it’s still relatively easy to find the stuff in most of the country, however absurd local regulations might be. That said a new study finds that “average” is really not a helpful way of looking at it:
Do you drink a glass of wine with dinner every night? That puts you in the top 30 percent of American adults in terms of per-capita alcohol consumption. If you drink two glasses, that would put you in the top 20 percent.
But in order to break into the top 10 percent of American drinkers, you would need to drink more than two bottles of wine with every dinner. And you’d still be below-average among those top 10 percenters.
The top 10 percent of American drinkers – 24 million adults over age 18 – consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week. That works out to a little more than four-and-a-half 750 ml bottles of Jack Daniels, 18 bottles of wine, or three 24-can cases of beer. In one week.
I don’t know about you, but that left me relieved and horrified. Sure, I’m a lightweight compared to the heaviest drinkers, but does having a glass or two of wine with dinner really put me above the 80th percentile? And nearly a third of American adults don’t drink at all?
Image Credit: Flickr user Kimery Davis.
Published in General
Well, yeah, considering that the other most popular beverages (tea and coffee) had to be imported, and one of the HUGE causes of the war was British tariffs and restrictions on trade, that makes total sense.
When potable water doesn’t come out of a tap, there are pretty much two ways to ensure safe beverages: kill the pathogens with a drink containing alcohol, or kill the pathogens with a drink made from boiling water.
I wonder if anybody’s ever done research to discover if there’s any connection between the federal government trying to tax alcohol during the Whiskey Rebellion and the availability of tea and/or coffee after the war was over.
After all, I’ve never heard about post-revolution Americans grumbling about the price of tea or coffee. Were the taxes and tariffs eliminated once the war was over?
I once guzzled a pitcher of beer as part of an impromptu hazing ritual. That’s where that top 10 percent is found: teenagers and college kids.
If so, only in that Americans don’t drink every single day. When they drink, most probably drink more than a single glass of wine or a couple beers. But they only drink occasionally. Wine with every meal is not common in America.
My grandma was bullied into trying her first beer in her 80s. It was a Guinness stout! Needless to say, she cringed.
What has never made sense to me about American alcohol customs is the scarcity of pubs despite millions of Irishmen. Here in Texas, we celebrate Oktoberfest because of all the Germans and Czechs. But pubs strangely didn’t make it across the Atlantic.
I think the averages are skewed a lot in that.
Gerard Depardieu downs 14 bottles a day.
Wow. Ok, that does make me feel better. I’ve got 7 minutes until noon, then I’m going to pour myself a glass of beer.
What, you think I’d drink before noon? bah!
Depending on what kind of job you have, a beer in the morning might be better for your productivity than a cup of coffee:
http://en.ilovecoffee.jp/posts/view/79
… at how awesome Guinness tastes!
Empty or full?
var rimshot = 1 ;Significant numbers of Americans are teetotalers. Another significant chunk binge drink on weekends only, which for men is 5 drinks in a short period of time. The glass of wine I have with dinner most nights means that I technically consume more alcohol per week than many college alumni who have three beers and two shots of tequila every tailgate day (7 drinks versus 5).
Finally, there are some serious boozers amongst the poor. Many of the people who drink from this selection of bum wines will go through a bottle every day, and they spend less on booze than someone who has a daily Starbucks habit spends on frappuccinos.
Suddenly I feel like we’re brethren.
I picked up the habit of drinking a glass or two of wine with dinner from some friends I stayed with in England back in the summer of 2012. But two bottles with dinner? Talk about being cockadoodled!
At least I made it to the top 10% in something. Top 10% in income would be nice, but I’ll take this.
There’s nothing like going in for a doctor’s appointment and trying to figure out how to describe one’s alcohol consumption without sounding like a drunkard. I have 1-3 drinks every Saturday, often one on Thursday, 1-2 at the church potluck once a month, and my husband and I go through a six pack or a bottle of wine about every other week. So I could drink anything from nothing to 10 drinks a week. I’m never more than pleasantly tipsy, but 10 drinks/week passes the arbitrary threshold of “she has a problem.”
Building on my first comment, it is no coincidence that the temperance movement in America made its biggest gains in the 34 years after the invention of Coca-Cola (1886) and the pasteurization of milk (also first proposed in 1886). The Anti-Saloon League was founded in 1893.
(Not to mention the introduction of effective water treatment in 1909, a mere 11 years before Prohibition.)
Tun Tavern is the birthplace of the first and best US fighting force . . . US Marine Corps!
http://www.usmarinesbirthplace.com/Tun-Tavern.html
The Upper-Canada Rebellion in 1837, which even though it was a failure was still one of the events which convinced Britain to devolve legislative powers to the Canadian colonies staring in 1848 and ultimately leading to Confederation in 1867 (which was negotiated at a keg party, essentially).
My point? The rebellion found its end at The Battle of Montgomery’s Tavern. Oops.
Somewhere, a lush is squinting at Tom’s picture of wine glasses and wondering how he can recreate it.
The optimist’s beer glass:
Glue the wine glasses to the base and lift one end.
The meaning behind “the enemies gate is down” is that by changing your reference frame, gravity can be in any direction you like.
You gotta problem, buddy?
Shiner Bock rules.
It’s a great beer.
Very much so. I’ll be talking about this in my upcoming post on the Whiskey Rebellion but the stat I have is that 24 bushels of rye could be distilled down to a mere 16 gallons of whiskey. As John says, far more portable and far less prone to spoilage.
I think that’s it. Here’s Ernie Kovacs (rather brilliantly) demonstrating the same trick:
Something I’ve heard, and I’m sure you can verify/dispute, is that part of the problem with the Whiskey Rebellion was that it had to be collected in currency, which poor farmers didn’t often have, and that George Washington just so happened to run a distillery that could pay the taxes. Even our first president tried to get in on some crony capitalist action.
That’s why I always say “a couple of glasses with a really nice meal.” They never ask how often I have really nice meals.
Look at the backdrop — the “diagonal” lines are perpendicular the wine level in the glasses.
We did a mental variation of this trick all the time in physics … calculating whether a block will slide down an inclined plane with a given friction is much easier when you assume the plane is flat and gravity is pulling at an angle.
I used to drink about one beverage a night. Sometimes beer, sometimes wine, sometimes something stronger. One or two days I’d not drink at all, except on game nights when I was raiding, in which repeated wipes would cause me to announce, “Okay, I need a drink.”
Nowadays, I drink a lot less, once or twice a week if at all. Sometimes we go to the Beaverton Farmers’ Market here where there’s always one to four stalls with local distilleries hawking their wares. They always have tasters available, and I’ll admit I never refuse an opportunity to try a bit.
The rise of local distilleries in this area has been remarkable, and they have some interesting products on the table.
I’m sure Ender would be a lot less of a downer if they served beer in school. Sure, they were minors, but everything else they were doing was abusive. Why not round it all out.
I’d tend to agree. I didn’t drink beer for a long time, repulsed by its skunky taste. Yes, the flavor of hops reminds me of the odor of skunks, and the odor of skunks for me means an instant asthma attack.
I much prefer beer where some flavor other than hops predominates.