Strictly speaking the map below does not identify the favorite alcoholic drink in each country. Instead it converts each type of drink to its pure alcohol equivalent and colors the country based on whichever type of alcoholic drink delivers the most raw alcohol to the citizens of each country. Before we get to the map, a bit of history. Archeological evidence suggests humans have been intentionally fermenting beverages for nearly 10,000 years. The earliest firm evidence for wine production dates from 5400 B.C. Iran and there’s even a Mesopotamian beer recipe in a 3,900 year old poem. Suffice it to say, humans have a long history of creating alcoholic beverages.
Observations
That bit of housekeeping done, a few things jumped out at me. With the exception of Sweden, where I’m assuming there’s not a large native wine industry, wine seems confined to countries that are near grape growing regions or dependencies of wine consuming countries. All of the very low consumption countries are predominantly Islamic, but not all Islamic countries are low consumers of alcoholic drinks. That’s not too surprising, but I was surprised that Kuwaitis consume less than Saudis.
I’m not really sure what constitutes “other,” but two countries listed as other Nigeria and Armenia struck me as odd. I would have bet Nigeria was a beer country and Armenia a wine country. Nigeria is the location of the first Guinness brewery outside of the British isles and I remember reading an article about it being a great beer market. While my Armenian cultural credentials are quite diluted, my ancestors grew grapes and made wine/brandy. Perhaps brandy counts as an “other.”
Does anything strike you as odd? Not to call out my readers, but if you drink alcohol (and let’s face it most of my adult readers probably do) what’s your favorite alcoholic drink?
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
Like many others, my intro to alcohol was in a cheap bar just off my college campus. There, I soon learned that beer didn’t like me. So I guess I fit the “spirits” category with my now favorite alcoholic drink being a Southern Comfort Manhatten.
As hard as this may be for my, albeit few, readers to believe – I’m not a big consumer of alcohol. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a drink. That said, when I do drink it’s usually a beer. I tend to prefer the English or Irish varieties over the German ones. As far as wine or harder spirits it’s probably a good thing that I don’t partake.