My parents were never drinkers, but I remember even they would come back to Connecticut from trips to New Hampshire with some alcohol in the trunk. Perhaps for visitors? Or maybe for gifts?
Heh. Back in the day my parents would “smuggle” margarine into Wisconsin from the flat lands, bringing in enough for family and friends.
I won’t even allow those tubs of disgusting grease and goop into my house!
Another measure of boozing is the prevalence of binge drinking. Again, the northern tier of states dominate the rankings.
Utah ranks as healthiest in terms of relatively low prevalence of excessive drinking - along with West Virginia, of all places. Another weirdness is that both Alaska and Hawaii have relatively high incidence of binge drinking. Maybe Hawaiians are underestimating the amount of alcohol in those cocktails served with the little umbrellas. 
Heh. We visited SLC to look for a new place to hold our conference, and saw the video from the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. Every other scene involved drinking. They really wanted to get the message across that the place isn’t dry.
Here’s one for the nation as a whole from 2014. I’m not at all sure what “normal” is or should be based on that; it’s a bit extreme on both ends- a 10th decile that’s insanely alcoholic, 3 deciles of non-drinkers, along with another 3 deciles of <1/wk.
Think you drink a lot? This chart will tell you. - The Washington Post
One theory is colder climates require more calories just to stay alive. Alcohol is a pretty efficient way to package and take in calories, thus higher consumption in colder spots, with some variations re taxes, etc. As for Hawaii, this confirms the theory: all those cold weather people are heading to the warmth and bring their consumption habits with them…
Here’s an article that says basically that the pandemic really shifted stuff to the right in a dramatic way.
Survey: Americans consumed 17 alcoholic drinks per week in 2020 (kwqc.com)
Here’s a more granular chart that sort of tracks with the WP one…
That’s about 3 beers per day averaged out. Seeing that some drinkers don’t drink a lot during the week and then blow their brains out on their off days I think your math works out pretty close to reality for many adults.
I know several people (up in Wisconsin, not too surprisingly) who regularly put away at least three beers in an evening, even on weeknights, and often are closer to six. No, that’s not a particularly healthy lifestyle, and yes, they do go to work the next morning.
Depends. I’m 6’3 and go 250. If I downed 3 beers even in an hour it would barely register. Someone who weighed a buck three-ninety eight would be affected much differently in terms of intoxication and hang over.
I turned legal drinking age at the beginning of my senior year in high school. I weighed 140. A six pack of pints of malt liquor kept me fucked up an entire weekend. Let me tell you, those were the days!
I did, too! I wonder what the per capita alcohol consumption rate would be if the 68% of Utah’s population that’s Mormon weren’t included. I suspect the main reason Wyoming didn’t make the top 10 and Montana did is that 11.5% of WY’s population is LDS, while only 4.5% of Montana’s is. (Not that all Mormons abstain from alcohol consumption, but the vast majority do. I think something like 10 or 15% of Mormons drink alcohol–or at least admit that they do.)
Which gives rise to the old joke:
Q: Why do you have to take more than one Mormon with you on your fishing trip ?
A: Because, if you only take one, he’ll drink all of your beer.
Oregon has no sales tax, but WA does and I think maybe WA buyers coming to Portland might affect the relative numbers of the two states.
Take heart: a while back I saw a list of US towns with the most bars per capita, and eight of the top ten were in Wisconsin! (the other two were in Jersey)
I would love to see that list.
This one doesn’t match what you recall at all.
Yeah, I just Googled it and found a whole bunch of mutually contradictory lists.
So my town has 8 or 9 bars and 3 liquor stores. Population is only 7k.
We also have a distillery and an Elks Lodge & an American Legion.
I don’t know if the Masons have alcohol.
Some do, some don’t.
Not necessarily inconsistent. Alcohol consumption being a significant factor in determining health means that, all else being equal, states which drink more would be less healthy. But all else isn’t equal, and there are many other significant factors.
Last I heard (about a decade ago), Montana (another heavy-drinking state on that list, and it’s probably accurate there) was rated as the healthiest state in the country. But there was also almost no smoking there, and everyone is physically active, which are also significant factors in health.
Hey! That’s funny and clever. I love it!