He said 35 six packs a year. I drink 3-4beers just stopping off at my favorite pub to shoot the shit before I catch my bus home. And that’s not even a “night out drinking”. Point is, a typical college/young adult social drinker can easily throw back a six pack on a typical night out. And back in the day, we used to go out Thurs, Fri, Sat night. Then Weds became the new Thurs. Of course there’s Monday Night Football. So beers with that too.
Now they are “the thing” in NYC/Hoboken/Jersey City. Maybe not right now that it’s 20 degrees out.
In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the USA was a largely rural nation. Roads were bad, and transport expensive. That is the reason that whiskey was so ubiquitous-it was cheaper for farmers to make whiskey than ship their surplus grain.
Being so cheap, people drank.
Crales Dickens (on his trip to the USA), remarked how cheap booze was-you could get stewed for 5 cents.
On the contrary, I’m extraordinarily glad that there is a place on the internet where the prevailing culture is to strive for rigorous truth, even if not always successful.
You have almost the entire rest of the internet where people routinely spew errors, half-truths, and just make shit up and pass it along as fact without ever being called on it! Still happens here, as well, but much less frequently on average. So I’ll take the nitpicky meticulousness any day if that’s what comes from being a relative oasis of reasonable discussion.
About the topic, I wonder what effect the availability of other drugs has had. Does alcohol compete with or promote other recreational drugs, or are they mostly non-interacting phenomena? For instance, I know several people who only smoke when they drink…
Our country did not see an upswing in marijuana, for instance, until the late 50’s early 60’s. Alcohol usage went down sharply after prohibition ended in the 30’s. This means no-one really noticed for thirty years how well a joint and a beer work out.
