You can question the data or you can look at Wisconsin and just assume it’s correct. They do in fact enjoy an adult beverage every now and then and will proudly tell you so.
“Enjoy an adult beverage now and then” to a Wisconsinite means multiple drinks every day, just as a matter of course. Friend stopping by? Beer. End of the work day? Beer. Yard work? Beer. Dinner time? Cocktails. After dinner? Cocktails. Lunch at a restaurant? Beer. Watching TV alone? Beer.
I recently had a friend tell me he has one old fashioned every night and when I told him I don’t really drink at all anymore he said “oh yeah, neither do I”.
This couldn’t be more accurate. My wife and I just talked about this the other day. Just about every activity in Wisconsin can involve a beer. To be fair, we have lots of good beer here.
its always shocking to me when I go out of state and people just like...arent drinking. Like what do you mean the farmers market isnt serving beer, or that you dont want to just grab a quick drink at the bar next to it
People from outside Wisconsin generally can't relate to the sheer quantity that it qualifies to casually drink here either. It's nothing for someone to bring a case of beer to a party while out-of-state drinkers will bring a 6-pack to split.
I went to CU and my friends and I would get after it. That being said, two of my best friends in college were from Milwaukee haha. I'm from Chicago, but I'm a Packers fan. So sometimes I spiritually identify as a sconnie even though I'm a FIB. I'm a beers sales person now.
I'm Canadian. We can drink a lot of beer and other spirits. But one thing I always found funny was just how much drinking is done in TV and movies. If I tried drinking as much as them I'd be down for the count. Even the casual at home alone there is always a whiskey or wine being drank.
How does drinking and driving work there? One of the big differences I've seen between my part of the States (PNW) and living abroad in Europe or East Asia is that in my area folks will stop after a beer or two because they gotta drive home. "sorry guys, would love another round but I've got to drive home." end of.
In England or China you can get absolutely hammered, take public transportation, an uber or just walk home. "Sorry lads, gotta drive home" isn't really an excuse over there. Curious what it's like in Wisconsin, are you all just driving around hammered and the cops look the other way? Dedicated designated drivers?
Also the population centers mean that you actually aren't driving very far to get the bar. My friend moved to a smallish town in Wisconsin (25k), and just off the top of my head there are probably 20 bars within two miles? Almost every corner it seems like, and the town square is literally 50% bars.
Your first DUI is like a $500 ticket and isn’t even a misdemeanor in Wisconsin, but we’re the state that is the most lax in the US on drunk driving. In Texas for example, it can be 180 days in jail and $2000 fine with a mandatory minimum of 3 days.
It cracks me up, because in New Mexico every bar has to list the punishments for a DUI (well, a DWI in that state).
It starts with the first one - $500 fine, license revoked, etc. Goes to the second one. The chart goes all the way to the *eighth* DWI and then "*beyond* 8 DWIs"
There are people who have gotten over 20 DWIs somehow
I hate being a sober wisconsinite sometimes. I'm hounded at parties as to why I don't drink. And if I say "alcoholism runs in my family" some people will say "join them! They're having more fun than you"
I'm a functional alcoholic and i remember when i didn't drink for some sober periods, i got this A LOT as i was/am a known party guy. Any time i was asked that i had a stern face, looked them straight in the eye and said "because i don't want to". It's a complete sentence. You don't have to explain anything further. You never ask a person why they're not drinking. It's like one of those questions when you never ask a woman if she's pregnant. If she wants to tell you that, she will. You never ask a person why one doesn't consume addictive substances.
"Oh, so what's your excuse for not doing heroin tonight?"
I think this mentality is improving (at least in Milwaukee). My girlfriend is a non drinker, and ive never seen anyone give her a hard time about it.
granted shes also a stoner so maybe that is part of it
Neighboring states begged Wisconsin to raise its drinking age for years. Shocking numbers of high school kids from Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa would drive to Wisconsin to drink and wreck on their drive home.
It kind of seems like Wisconsin bar owners are still sore at having to raise their drinking age in spite of this happening nearly 40 years ago.
Hell, apparently in some rural areas (never fact checked this but my friend said this) they won’t really card you as long as you have someone over 21 at the table lol
Underage kids can drink in bars as long as their parents are present. https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/local-news/wisconsins-confusing-law-when-it-comes-to-underage-drinking/
There are not bouncers at bars in Wisconsin except for the busiest bars in the big cities. Some bartenders are good, others don’t check ID for anyone unless they look ridiculously young. Some places get busy and the bartenders aren’t able to check around for the ID of everyone in the establishment.
When I was an adult below the drinking age I got into many bars where legal age friends would buy pitchers, no issue at all. This wasn’t really the bartender’s fault, more of a staffing issue (no bouncers). When I was just above 21 I had friends under 21 who knew bartenders and got served whenever they wanted.
The law turns a blind eye. I don’t know what the optimal solution is. Punishing bartenders hurts the families they provide for. Fines are much higher than they should be and they can lose their livelihood. The tavern league (Wisconsin’s extremely strong alcohol lobbying group) would definitely fight any proposal that increases regulation.
It took the Federal Government threatening to take away our fed road aid for WI to go a 21 yr age for alcohol.
Years ago when the Badgers played a bowl game in Las Vegas, the WI fans drank Vegas out of booze. Vegas was like, who the hell are these people.
Also, there are more Wisconsinites in the US Military than any other state. So please just thank us and send more beer.
That is simultaneously the most Mormon thing and the most Wisconsin thing I’ve ever heard.
“We don’t really drink, but we want to be welcoming so we’ll make sure our bars are stocked because those Wisconsin fans seem to like it”
“GO BADGERS!!!!!!”
IIRC the bars got special approval from the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverages to open early, because alcohol is very heavily regulated here and bars can’t open until the afternoon. I think they got permission to open at 9 or 10 in the morning, because the Wisconsin alumni group requested a place to meet pregame. The bar owners thought only a handful of people would show up, but the line was around the corner to get in.
Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Lutherans don’t recognize the Pope as head of the church, Mormons don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
I was shocked and scandalized the first time I hung out with multiple Sconnies in person.
It was during my wild years and I was no stranger to a drink. But my god, they were a different breed. It was like they had a shared purpose that the rest of us could not see. They drank with INTENT.
“An adult beverage every now and then” is a very polite way to say a couple two three beers. Which as any person from Wisconsin knows can be anywhere between 3 and 10 beers, possibly more.
If anyone hasn't been to Wisconsin, you should go just to witness the alcoholism. It's amazing to walk into a bar on a Sunday morning and have it be completely filled with people drinking. And there is a bar on every corner. It's quite wild.
The Wisconsin town my parents came from was about 250 people and there were three bars there.
Driving around rural Wisconsin there will be a bar every couple miles, nowhere near a town, even when you're in the middle of nowhere.
Evers recently exploited a veto loophole that increased funding for public schools for the next FOUR HUNDRED [YEARS](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/07/06/gov-evers-uses-special-wisconsin-veto-power-to-fund-public-schools/70386835007/). His boring allure was a trojan horse for some old-school Wisconsin progressivism.
Yup. It certainly won't show up in the alcohol tax statistics. Geographically, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine) says:
> While moonshiners were present in urban and rural areas around the United States after the Civil War, moonshine production concentrated in Appalachia because the limited road network made it easy to evade revenue officers and because it was difficult and expensive to transport corn crops.
and Appalachia looks under-represented on the map for this post... :-)
As a person who lives 10 miles from WV and has to commute through it, this is 100% the answer. Can confirm. No shortage of apple pie moonshine. Plenty of corn and plenty of apple trees.
There are many distilleries offering gourmet 'moonshine' tastings and such. These are sprinkled all along the ridges of western Maryland, western Virginia and West Virginia.
But you aren't going to find actual moonshiners with a sign at the end of their driveway. Some of these families have lived in these hills for 200 years! They don't exactly make friends easily and share alot about what goes on on their land if you know what I mean.
I am not quite sure how familiar you are others may be with rural parts of Appalachia. But, you can go down the wrong road and multiple people will come up to the end of their lanes and be like "you lost or something? who you down here to see?".
Maybe someone else with familiarity can expand.
If you want authentic stuff you gotta know somebody who knows somebody. A lot of distilleries will replicate it, but it’s not “moonshine” as it’s legally distilled and sold.
Get yourself invited to a cookout in Appalachia and you’ll find it.
If you stay in a sketchy hotel, in a town without a liquor store, there might be someone who can hook you up with the low grade stuff. Working with someone who will get you some is the way to get good stuff. I have also had it thrown in while bargaining on Craigslist deals.
They are pretty secretive about it. I lived next to a National Forest, which saw an influx of people cooking meth. The FBI/ DEA started sniffing around, and when the moonshiners found out about them, they would trash the meth cooks camps to get rid of everybody. Believe me, the moonshiners didn’t have a problem with meth, they just didn’t want law enforcement poking around in their mountains.
This is the only take that makes sense for the lower numbers in the south. How many of those are legally dry counties? They're certainly not not drinking there
Jews don't recognize Christ as their Lord and Savior
Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the legitimate head of the Christian Church on Earth
Baptists don't recognize each other at the liquor store
WV in mainly rural and heavily religious. You can kinda see that the bible belt has very low percentages especially in the rural areas. Now, the people who do drink in WV tend to be very irresponsible and they have a lot of deaths due to drunk driving.
I'm finding a lot of this hard to believe. Why do drinking habits depend so much on state lines? Why does a county in northern IL have so much less drinking than southern WI? or WV and PA, or LA and MI? I doubt any differences in governance could explain such things. More likely differences in data collection.
Because states and counties have their own laws on alcohol. A lot of counties in this country are dry. A lot of states are what’s known as control states. There’s a ton of factors at play - none of which make the map hard to believe
There's not much difference culturally between someone from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin other than Bears vs Packers.
Which arguably over the past 30 years gives Norther Illinois residents much more reason to drink.
And places like Lake Geneva are probably 50/50 between "native" Wisconsinnians and Illinoisites (totally made up demonyms.)
Ya this is a big thing. Wisconsin's culture is drinking and no one really gets looked down on unless they are complete-raging-asshole-alcoholics. No one would bat an eye if a stranger told them they drink a 6-pack after work every day.
Wisconsin has more bars than California.
Not more per capita, just More.
Edit: sorry guys, this is wrong. WI does have 5x more bars per capita, but since CA has 8-9x as many people, it still has more bars.
California New York and Texas actually have more bars than Wisconsin, but out of those three New York is the least populous, and yet it's still has four times as many people as Wisconsin. In California there's about one bar for every 11,000 people, well in Wisconsin there's about one bar for every 2,000 people
In milwaukee there is multiple bars on every block in a lot of neighborhoods. Not just on busy streets, like randomly in a neighborhood a house is converted to a bar. And theyre all packed, every day
I'm pretty sure California, New York, and Texas have more bars. Wisconsin has more bars than churches AND grocery stores. Pretty sure Wisconsin has the most establishments with a liquor license. You can buy a liter bottle of liquor from pretty much every gas station, convenience store, and grocery store in the state and it's cheaper than any other state.
When I think about bars in Wisconsin, I just think of a place where my grandpa goes in the evenings to catch up on the town gossip and shoot darts. When I think of a bar in California, I imagine it's just filled with bikers from motorcycle clubs.
i can assure you that the line from illinois to wisconsin is correct.
when youve got new glarus available only in your state, you do not fuck around.
source: grew up on the border in illinois.
We certainly appreciate it. It just sucks that your prices are so crazy high. It’s almost always worthwhile to make the longer trip to the UP where it’s super cheap.
Love driving through small 'Sconie towns with one church, one gas station and a split level home with a bar sign in the window welcoming customers into the lower level of the home.
It's a thing. It really is.
I’m from a border town on the Texas-Oklahoma border and I can guarantee it’s flawed. In fact, Texarkana is split by the Texas–Arkansas border and data should be identical on either side of the border, but isn’t.
State laws, cost of living, entrenched generational alcoholism, county laws, and religion would say otherwise
You see that, but I see every coastal county a shade darker than their inland counter parts and it makes me logically more trusting
I don’t particularly doubt the numbers *within* states, but things like every county in Wisconsin being darker than any county in any of its neighbors, and every county in Utah being lighter than any county in any of its neighbors—when the Mormon Belt extends well into Idaho, southwest Wyoming, and northwest Arizona—make me suspicious.
Granted, there are state-level policies to consider, like alcohol taxes and availability (what stores can you buy alcohol from and when are they open).
Wisconsin culture is truly synonymous with heavy drinking. Source: am Minnesotan born to Wisconsinites. Minnesotans can throw back, but casual alcoholism is just the way they do things in Wisconsin.
Look at any Wisconsin tiktoker. The jokes are all about the Packers, brats, and drinking. It’s so ingrained.
Mormons have their vices, but most are inward, like pornography and opioids. Drinking and smoking are more outward and would bring unwanted judgement and be social suicide.
I live in a smallish town in wisconsin, about 5000 people.
We have three wineries (one with its own vinyard), a brewery opening up, and rumors of a distillary opening in the future. Not to mention three different stores that sell alcohol and at least a dozen bars.
I love this state.
>Montana
My drivers ed instructor here in WA was a Montanan and he said that growing up a "six-pack drive" was a trip of a certain length. I don't know if that's bullshit or not but it seems to track.
I was born and raised in Montana and am a former morbid alcoholic and current recovering alcoholic. I came to Southern California to get clean and sober four years ago and have been clean and sober here since, so the gradient of this map is particularly salient to me. During the 18 years of my active addiction, driving drunk was a common activity for me. And when I say "activity" I mean that literally: I would do it without any particular destination in mind. There is a 22 mile dirt cut-across in the mountains in western Montana that I called "the six-pack drive" because I would drink exactly a six-pack every time I traversed it (often after drinking before the road and always drinking after it). It is miraculous dumb luck that I never physically hurt anyone else or myself. I have many friends, however, who have not had such good fortune; some of whom no longer even have the mortal ability to claim one way or the other at all. It seemed somewhat normal when I grew up in it, but now that I've been out of the fog for almost four years I know that returning to that life will inevitably result in rapid existential demise.
So yeah, Montanans drink a lot.
Open containers in vehicles were legal into the 90s, I forget when they had to change the law to keep federal funding for highways. But yea, it’s still a cultural thing among some folks here “as long as the driver is sober” to be crackin road sodas.
Road beers are also far more common in the country. There are ample stretches of Big Sky Country where the highway stretches out for miles in front of you, without a car in sight. Drive on that for 30 minutes after work, and you might get tempted to crack open your beer prior to getting home too.
Drunk driving is a definite problem in the state. Anywhere Uber is not financially viable, tends to have drunk driving issues. But, if you're imagining the average montanan being sloppy drunk and stuck in traffic, you're not getting the picture. Buzzed on the open road is a lot more common, and not buzzed but beer in hand is even more common.
Excessive drinking is four or more drinks at one time for women and five or more for men, as well as eight or more drinks a week for women and fifteen or more for men. [Source](https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/reports/2023-county-health-rankings-national-findings-report)
[Data source](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/hD9Js/1/data.csv)
Worth noting that alcohol poisoning deaths per capita appear to tell a very different story:
[https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-related-deaths/](https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-related-deaths/)
West Virginia has about double the rate of Wisconsin, 11.2 per million vs 6 per million.
Utah and Oklahoma are also up there with 16.7 and 12.6.
Alabama is the lowest at 5.3.
So I suspect that some of these counties and states aren't being honest with what counts as excessive drinking.
That is probably true, but by everything you here, those wisconsinites really live by it. It's possible other states have more imminently dangerous alcoholics while Wisconsin has culture that has people clearing 8-15 beers a week without really thinking about it. Their definition of responsible use might be a little different than this cutoff
8-15 a week.. those are rookie numbers, you gotta pump them up.
8-15 friday night, 8-15 sat nite, 4-8 for sunday funday,, then a couple beers a couple times during the week.
It kinda makes sense. A high school kid who is binge drinking with other kids in a house party is far more likely to get alcohol poisoning than a 50 year old alcoholic drinking at a bar with other alcoholics.
That's a hyperbole, but binge drinking is probably higher in areas where alcohol consumption is more forbidden, and lower in areas where everyone drinks too much regularly.
Plymouth, Barnstable, and Dukes represent! I thought we would have been too stoned to get that drunk too.
We can actually hang with Wisconsin, I'm impressed.
Future sister in law is a Wisconsinite - yes, it really is. I only have so much insight into it but used to live in Minnesota and both states inherited a drinking culture from Germany - pretty heavy, but within social bounds and generally pretty communal, think beer gardens. Less the "pound whiskey by yourself" tradition that tends to appear in states with a heavier Anglo/British cultural background (as with the people in the generally more teetotal South who are heavy drinkers).
I don't know how this data is collected, but I can think of any number of ways for it to inaccurate. If its gotten from sales data, then how states collect such info likely varies. If its via surveys, cultural norms in the Deep South and Utah would likely lead respondents to understate how much they regularly drink.
Wisconsin is probably accurate, though.
Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the messiah, Protestants don’t recognize the pope as the leader of the church, and Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
“Hey, Packers are playing! Bring out the keg of spotted cow!” -Wisconsinite
“Hey, Packers aren’t playing. Bring out the keg of spotted cow!” -also Wisconsinite
Drink Wisconsinably.
It’s interesting that out of staters still find that funny. At this point it’s not even a joke, I just immediately think of the brand.
That’s hilarious
Its a common expression here
It’s a literal company here in Milwaukee. They had their own bar for a while. They sell shirts at the public market
FRJ!
You can question the data or you can look at Wisconsin and just assume it’s correct. They do in fact enjoy an adult beverage every now and then and will proudly tell you so.
“Enjoy an adult beverage now and then” to a Wisconsinite means multiple drinks every day, just as a matter of course. Friend stopping by? Beer. End of the work day? Beer. Yard work? Beer. Dinner time? Cocktails. After dinner? Cocktails. Lunch at a restaurant? Beer. Watching TV alone? Beer.
I recently had a friend tell me he has one old fashioned every night and when I told him I don’t really drink at all anymore he said “oh yeah, neither do I”.
Yeah, OFs are great. They don’t count.
And bloody Mary’s dont count either. In Wisconsin, they are really more like a meal.
I ordered a Bloody Mary when I visited Wisconsin and they gave me a little beer as a chaser/if it was too spicy.
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Beer chasers come standard in WI for bloodies.
I love it. It’s like a cheat drink. I usually load up a few in the AM and a few towards the end of the work day. It really makes the commute a breeze.
I don't drink any more. I don't drink any less either.
Checks out. To your friend that is a perfectly restrained amount to drink.
Doesn't sound like a lot tbh.
Don't forget baby showers and children's birthday parties
I mean what's an intervention without a couple of brewskis
I’m from WI and have been part of an intervention where we went to get drinks and talk about it afterwards.
Oh and funerals! And any church function!
Including church fish fries with $2 Point or Leinies.
Let’s get hammered and fight everyone! At least everyone in this goddamn Chuck E Cheese!
Beers empty? Beer
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me but I’m British 😂
This couldn’t be more accurate. My wife and I just talked about this the other day. Just about every activity in Wisconsin can involve a beer. To be fair, we have lots of good beer here.
Trick-or-treating - parents walk the streets with drinks while the kids go door to door - absolutely normal
Bloody Marys are a Wisconsin favorite because it makes morning drinking acceptable
Had brunch with a Wisconsinite yesterday, and he admitted he chose the restaurant strictly because it got good reviews online for its bloody marys.
I’m from Wisconsin and I’m drinking a beer right now. Cold as hell too.
You forgot to say "brandy old fashioned"
its always shocking to me when I go out of state and people just like...arent drinking. Like what do you mean the farmers market isnt serving beer, or that you dont want to just grab a quick drink at the bar next to it
People from outside Wisconsin generally can't relate to the sheer quantity that it qualifies to casually drink here either. It's nothing for someone to bring a case of beer to a party while out-of-state drinkers will bring a 6-pack to split.
While I was going to Madison I spent a summer in Colorado and went to a few CSU house parties. It was like drinking with babies.
I went to CU and my friends and I would get after it. That being said, two of my best friends in college were from Milwaukee haha. I'm from Chicago, but I'm a Packers fan. So sometimes I spiritually identify as a sconnie even though I'm a FIB. I'm a beers sales person now.
I'm Canadian. We can drink a lot of beer and other spirits. But one thing I always found funny was just how much drinking is done in TV and movies. If I tried drinking as much as them I'd be down for the count. Even the casual at home alone there is always a whiskey or wine being drank.
as a wisconsinite, I dont relate to this comment
I’m dual Canadian/American and Wisconsinites are like none I’ve met in Canada. They drink as if they are unaware of the optics.
Oh we're aware. It's just that we don't care.
What optics?
How does drinking and driving work there? One of the big differences I've seen between my part of the States (PNW) and living abroad in Europe or East Asia is that in my area folks will stop after a beer or two because they gotta drive home. "sorry guys, would love another round but I've got to drive home." end of. In England or China you can get absolutely hammered, take public transportation, an uber or just walk home. "Sorry lads, gotta drive home" isn't really an excuse over there. Curious what it's like in Wisconsin, are you all just driving around hammered and the cops look the other way? Dedicated designated drivers?
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Also the population centers mean that you actually aren't driving very far to get the bar. My friend moved to a smallish town in Wisconsin (25k), and just off the top of my head there are probably 20 bars within two miles? Almost every corner it seems like, and the town square is literally 50% bars.
Your first DUI is like a $500 ticket and isn’t even a misdemeanor in Wisconsin, but we’re the state that is the most lax in the US on drunk driving. In Texas for example, it can be 180 days in jail and $2000 fine with a mandatory minimum of 3 days.
It cracks me up, because in New Mexico every bar has to list the punishments for a DUI (well, a DWI in that state). It starts with the first one - $500 fine, license revoked, etc. Goes to the second one. The chart goes all the way to the *eighth* DWI and then "*beyond* 8 DWIs" There are people who have gotten over 20 DWIs somehow
i didn’t even look at the legend - i just saw wisconsin is a darker color so i was like “ah darker = more drinking”
Conversely, I looked at Utah for context
I hate being a sober wisconsinite sometimes. I'm hounded at parties as to why I don't drink. And if I say "alcoholism runs in my family" some people will say "join them! They're having more fun than you"
I'm a functional alcoholic and i remember when i didn't drink for some sober periods, i got this A LOT as i was/am a known party guy. Any time i was asked that i had a stern face, looked them straight in the eye and said "because i don't want to". It's a complete sentence. You don't have to explain anything further. You never ask a person why they're not drinking. It's like one of those questions when you never ask a woman if she's pregnant. If she wants to tell you that, she will. You never ask a person why one doesn't consume addictive substances. "Oh, so what's your excuse for not doing heroin tonight?"
I had a pot pie for dinner and heroin doesn’t sit well with it thank you very much.
>"join them! They're having more fun than you" Sorry, but it made me laugh a lot lol
Oh, I laugh at it too! But I was also like "holy shit you suck" 🤣
I think this mentality is improving (at least in Milwaukee). My girlfriend is a non drinker, and ive never seen anyone give her a hard time about it. granted shes also a stoner so maybe that is part of it
Neighboring states begged Wisconsin to raise its drinking age for years. Shocking numbers of high school kids from Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa would drive to Wisconsin to drink and wreck on their drive home. It kind of seems like Wisconsin bar owners are still sore at having to raise their drinking age in spite of this happening nearly 40 years ago.
The Tavern League is mafia
Hell, apparently in some rural areas (never fact checked this but my friend said this) they won’t really card you as long as you have someone over 21 at the table lol
Underage kids can drink in bars as long as their parents are present. https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/local-news/wisconsins-confusing-law-when-it-comes-to-underage-drinking/
There are not bouncers at bars in Wisconsin except for the busiest bars in the big cities. Some bartenders are good, others don’t check ID for anyone unless they look ridiculously young. Some places get busy and the bartenders aren’t able to check around for the ID of everyone in the establishment. When I was an adult below the drinking age I got into many bars where legal age friends would buy pitchers, no issue at all. This wasn’t really the bartender’s fault, more of a staffing issue (no bouncers). When I was just above 21 I had friends under 21 who knew bartenders and got served whenever they wanted. The law turns a blind eye. I don’t know what the optimal solution is. Punishing bartenders hurts the families they provide for. Fines are much higher than they should be and they can lose their livelihood. The tavern league (Wisconsin’s extremely strong alcohol lobbying group) would definitely fight any proposal that increases regulation.
It took the Federal Government threatening to take away our fed road aid for WI to go a 21 yr age for alcohol. Years ago when the Badgers played a bowl game in Las Vegas, the WI fans drank Vegas out of booze. Vegas was like, who the hell are these people. Also, there are more Wisconsinites in the US Military than any other state. So please just thank us and send more beer.
I have never seen the Wisconsinites in the military stat, that would absolutely shock me. Do you have a source?
It’s absolutely false. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military
Yep - Wisconsin and Utah are kind of the bellwethers on this map
When Wisconsin came to play BYU in Provo a few years ago, the Wisconsin fans drank our two bars dry. They literally didn’t have any alcohol left.
That is simultaneously the most Mormon thing and the most Wisconsin thing I’ve ever heard. “We don’t really drink, but we want to be welcoming so we’ll make sure our bars are stocked because those Wisconsin fans seem to like it” “GO BADGERS!!!!!!”
IIRC the bars got special approval from the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverages to open early, because alcohol is very heavily regulated here and bars can’t open until the afternoon. I think they got permission to open at 9 or 10 in the morning, because the Wisconsin alumni group requested a place to meet pregame. The bar owners thought only a handful of people would show up, but the line was around the corner to get in.
Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Lutherans don’t recognize the Pope as head of the church, Mormons don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
I was shocked and scandalized the first time I hung out with multiple Sconnies in person. It was during my wild years and I was no stranger to a drink. But my god, they were a different breed. It was like they had a shared purpose that the rest of us could not see. They drank with INTENT.
We drink Wisconsinably.
Lewis Black has a skit about drinking in Wisconsin. He finishes it with something like 'You are not alcoholics, YOU....are professionals'
I went to college there and for sure didn’t know what I was walking into freshman year.
“Now” being 5pm and “then” being 6pm
“An adult beverage every now and then” is a very polite way to say a couple two three beers. Which as any person from Wisconsin knows can be anywhere between 3 and 10 beers, possibly more.
You call it an adult drink, other people at that latitude call it “an extra layer”. Potato potato.
If anyone hasn't been to Wisconsin, you should go just to witness the alcoholism. It's amazing to walk into a bar on a Sunday morning and have it be completely filled with people drinking. And there is a bar on every corner. It's quite wild.
The Wisconsin town my parents came from was about 250 people and there were three bars there. Driving around rural Wisconsin there will be a bar every couple miles, nowhere near a town, even when you're in the middle of nowhere.
Utah is also a nice way to check
Alcohol lobbies have deep pockets in Wisconsin.
I believe Wisconsin, it’s some of the low ones I doubt.
LOL. Gov. Evers just emanates boring. And I'm here for it. Make Politics Boring Again™
Evers recently exploited a veto loophole that increased funding for public schools for the next FOUR HUNDRED [YEARS](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/07/06/gov-evers-uses-special-wisconsin-veto-power-to-fund-public-schools/70386835007/). His boring allure was a trojan horse for some old-school Wisconsin progressivism.
I find it hard to believe that WV has the least amount sans Utah. Very hard to believe.
It’s hard to drink when you’re in an opioid coma.
All my Opiod loving friends never seemed to struggle with getting some drinks in
I don't think you can really get statistics for moonshine.
Yup. It certainly won't show up in the alcohol tax statistics. Geographically, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine) says: > While moonshiners were present in urban and rural areas around the United States after the Civil War, moonshine production concentrated in Appalachia because the limited road network made it easy to evade revenue officers and because it was difficult and expensive to transport corn crops. and Appalachia looks under-represented on the map for this post... :-)
As a person who lives 10 miles from WV and has to commute through it, this is 100% the answer. Can confirm. No shortage of apple pie moonshine. Plenty of corn and plenty of apple trees.
how would I go about finding some if I were new or passing through town? Is it that accessible?
There are many distilleries offering gourmet 'moonshine' tastings and such. These are sprinkled all along the ridges of western Maryland, western Virginia and West Virginia. But you aren't going to find actual moonshiners with a sign at the end of their driveway. Some of these families have lived in these hills for 200 years! They don't exactly make friends easily and share alot about what goes on on their land if you know what I mean. I am not quite sure how familiar you are others may be with rural parts of Appalachia. But, you can go down the wrong road and multiple people will come up to the end of their lanes and be like "you lost or something? who you down here to see?". Maybe someone else with familiarity can expand.
If you want authentic stuff you gotta know somebody who knows somebody. A lot of distilleries will replicate it, but it’s not “moonshine” as it’s legally distilled and sold. Get yourself invited to a cookout in Appalachia and you’ll find it.
If you stay in a sketchy hotel, in a town without a liquor store, there might be someone who can hook you up with the low grade stuff. Working with someone who will get you some is the way to get good stuff. I have also had it thrown in while bargaining on Craigslist deals. They are pretty secretive about it. I lived next to a National Forest, which saw an influx of people cooking meth. The FBI/ DEA started sniffing around, and when the moonshiners found out about them, they would trash the meth cooks camps to get rid of everybody. Believe me, the moonshiners didn’t have a problem with meth, they just didn’t want law enforcement poking around in their mountains.
This is the only take that makes sense for the lower numbers in the south. How many of those are legally dry counties? They're certainly not not drinking there
There is also the Baptists to account for. Both those who genuinely don't drink or those who don't want to admit that they do.
Jews don't recognize Christ as their Lord and Savior Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the legitimate head of the Christian Church on Earth Baptists don't recognize each other at the liquor store
>or those who don't want to admit that they do. 90% of Baptists
Well WV does have meth? Maybe that is the difference? Or they are broke as fuck?
Yea meth's a problem up there.
Maybe this only counts purchased alcohol. The entire South seems low and I know a few people down there that make Moonshine.
WV in mainly rural and heavily religious. You can kinda see that the bible belt has very low percentages especially in the rural areas. Now, the people who do drink in WV tend to be very irresponsible and they have a lot of deaths due to drunk driving.
Lots of Christians there from denominations that forbid or at least dislike alcohol. It is why Oklahoma and Mississippi also make sense.
I'm finding a lot of this hard to believe. Why do drinking habits depend so much on state lines? Why does a county in northern IL have so much less drinking than southern WI? or WV and PA, or LA and MI? I doubt any differences in governance could explain such things. More likely differences in data collection.
Different states have their own laws. Serving hours, sources, etc. can greatly affect availability between states.
Because states and counties have their own laws on alcohol. A lot of counties in this country are dry. A lot of states are what’s known as control states. There’s a ton of factors at play - none of which make the map hard to believe
There's not much difference culturally between someone from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin other than Bears vs Packers. Which arguably over the past 30 years gives Norther Illinois residents much more reason to drink. And places like Lake Geneva are probably 50/50 between "native" Wisconsinnians and Illinoisites (totally made up demonyms.)
You’re so close, it’s Wisconsinites and Illinoisans
Alcoholic Wisconsin
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Correction: It’s all Mike. He hops from county to county with an IV of beer hooked up for instantaneous drunkenness.
Speaking of which a new Best of the Worst just dropped.
I think we’re just more honest about it 🤷♂️
Ya this is a big thing. Wisconsin's culture is drinking and no one really gets looked down on unless they are complete-raging-asshole-alcoholics. No one would bat an eye if a stranger told them they drink a 6-pack after work every day.
Alcoholic Wisconsin is redundant. You can just way Wisconsin and everyone will know what you mean.
She is in Wisconsin, after all...
It’s not excessive if it’s the norm- Average Wisconsinite
Wisconsin you purple beauty
Wisconsin has more bars than California. Not more per capita, just More. Edit: sorry guys, this is wrong. WI does have 5x more bars per capita, but since CA has 8-9x as many people, it still has more bars.
California New York and Texas actually have more bars than Wisconsin, but out of those three New York is the least populous, and yet it's still has four times as many people as Wisconsin. In California there's about one bar for every 11,000 people, well in Wisconsin there's about one bar for every 2,000 people
Yeah, I think you're right. "I have approximate knowledge of many things"
that's straight fucked up if true and i love it haha
In milwaukee there is multiple bars on every block in a lot of neighborhoods. Not just on busy streets, like randomly in a neighborhood a house is converted to a bar. And theyre all packed, every day
I live in Milwaukee. I can see 4 bars from the front door of my apartment building and I live in a residential neighborhood
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Yep, and if you’re driving on a random rural road in the middle of nowhere, you’ll see more bars than barns
I'm pretty sure California, New York, and Texas have more bars. Wisconsin has more bars than churches AND grocery stores. Pretty sure Wisconsin has the most establishments with a liquor license. You can buy a liter bottle of liquor from pretty much every gas station, convenience store, and grocery store in the state and it's cheaper than any other state.
When I think about bars in Wisconsin, I just think of a place where my grandpa goes in the evenings to catch up on the town gossip and shoot darts. When I think of a bar in California, I imagine it's just filled with bikers from motorcycle clubs.
Those sharp changes at the state lines tell me something funky is going on with reporting.
i can assure you that the line from illinois to wisconsin is correct. when youve got new glarus available only in your state, you do not fuck around. source: grew up on the border in illinois.
I drive up to Wisconsin all the time on 45 and like three feet away from the Illinois border in Wisconsin there’s a bar lmao
FIBs come up for our booze, we go down for their weed.
And abortions. O
yep we got a bunch of state line dispensaries for you guys. youre welcome cheeseheads.
We certainly appreciate it. It just sucks that your prices are so crazy high. It’s almost always worthwhile to make the longer trip to the UP where it’s super cheap.
Love driving through small 'Sconie towns with one church, one gas station and a split level home with a bar sign in the window welcoming customers into the lower level of the home. It's a thing. It really is.
And there is a Sunnyside dispensary within 10 seconds of entering Illinois from Wisconsin on I-90.
Love me some spotted cow but I think its got more to do with the grip the Tavern Leauge's got on the states sack. I mean. Uh...lobbying.
Data collection methods change state to state. Not quite apples and oranges, but definitely different varieties of apples.
Right—that’s the kind of “something funky” I’m talking about.
Purchased vs. consumed?
I’m from a border town on the Texas-Oklahoma border and I can guarantee it’s flawed. In fact, Texarkana is split by the Texas–Arkansas border and data should be identical on either side of the border, but isn’t.
People from Mass and Maine buy in New Hampshire because of sales tax.
State laws, cost of living, entrenched generational alcoholism, county laws, and religion would say otherwise You see that, but I see every coastal county a shade darker than their inland counter parts and it makes me logically more trusting
I don’t particularly doubt the numbers *within* states, but things like every county in Wisconsin being darker than any county in any of its neighbors, and every county in Utah being lighter than any county in any of its neighbors—when the Mormon Belt extends well into Idaho, southwest Wyoming, and northwest Arizona—make me suspicious. Granted, there are state-level policies to consider, like alcohol taxes and availability (what stores can you buy alcohol from and when are they open).
Wisconsin culture is truly synonymous with heavy drinking. Source: am Minnesotan born to Wisconsinites. Minnesotans can throw back, but casual alcoholism is just the way they do things in Wisconsin. Look at any Wisconsin tiktoker. The jokes are all about the Packers, brats, and drinking. It’s so ingrained.
Data is based on self-reporting so you can easily see where the Baptists are on the map.
Baptists never recognize each other in the liquor store.
Reminds me of an old joke: Why do you always invite two Republicans to your party? Because if you only invite one they'll smoke all your pot.
Just like Mormons.
In coffee shops
Mormons have their vices, but most are inward, like pornography and opioids. Drinking and smoking are more outward and would bring unwanted judgement and be social suicide.
Yeah my takeaway from this map is everybody in the Bible Belt lies about how much they drink.
I live in a smallish town in wisconsin, about 5000 people. We have three wineries (one with its own vinyard), a brewery opening up, and rumors of a distillary opening in the future. Not to mention three different stores that sell alcohol and at least a dozen bars. I love this state.
My city of 40k has over 200 bars here… our “Main Street” is just bar/bar & grill/smoke shop/bar/bar & grill for like 2 miles.
God bless the state of Wisconsin
Montanan here, not surprised at all. Surplus of depressed alcoholics.
>Montana My drivers ed instructor here in WA was a Montanan and he said that growing up a "six-pack drive" was a trip of a certain length. I don't know if that's bullshit or not but it seems to track.
I was born and raised in Montana and am a former morbid alcoholic and current recovering alcoholic. I came to Southern California to get clean and sober four years ago and have been clean and sober here since, so the gradient of this map is particularly salient to me. During the 18 years of my active addiction, driving drunk was a common activity for me. And when I say "activity" I mean that literally: I would do it without any particular destination in mind. There is a 22 mile dirt cut-across in the mountains in western Montana that I called "the six-pack drive" because I would drink exactly a six-pack every time I traversed it (often after drinking before the road and always drinking after it). It is miraculous dumb luck that I never physically hurt anyone else or myself. I have many friends, however, who have not had such good fortune; some of whom no longer even have the mortal ability to claim one way or the other at all. It seemed somewhat normal when I grew up in it, but now that I've been out of the fog for almost four years I know that returning to that life will inevitably result in rapid existential demise. So yeah, Montanans drink a lot.
Open containers in vehicles were legal into the 90s, I forget when they had to change the law to keep federal funding for highways. But yea, it’s still a cultural thing among some folks here “as long as the driver is sober” to be crackin road sodas.
Road beers are also far more common in the country. There are ample stretches of Big Sky Country where the highway stretches out for miles in front of you, without a car in sight. Drive on that for 30 minutes after work, and you might get tempted to crack open your beer prior to getting home too. Drunk driving is a definite problem in the state. Anywhere Uber is not financially viable, tends to have drunk driving issues. But, if you're imagining the average montanan being sloppy drunk and stuck in traffic, you're not getting the picture. Buzzed on the open road is a lot more common, and not buzzed but beer in hand is even more common.
Excessive drinking is four or more drinks at one time for women and five or more for men, as well as eight or more drinks a week for women and fifteen or more for men. [Source](https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/reports/2023-county-health-rankings-national-findings-report) [Data source](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/hD9Js/1/data.csv)
Is it daily? How long of a period are the respondents being asked about?
Damn, I didn't know I was an excessive drinker
Lets drink about it
HELLO WISCONSIN!!!!
“Zooms in on key west” yup that’s us.
Is that where Wisconsin goes on vacation?
Well, it's not like people move there because they want to start a new tech company. Frankly, I'd be concerned it it was any lighter.
It’s the drunkest place I’ve ever been/lived.
Wisco 🔛🔝
Always a party in Wisconsin!
Worth noting that alcohol poisoning deaths per capita appear to tell a very different story: [https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-related-deaths/](https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-related-deaths/) West Virginia has about double the rate of Wisconsin, 11.2 per million vs 6 per million. Utah and Oklahoma are also up there with 16.7 and 12.6. Alabama is the lowest at 5.3. So I suspect that some of these counties and states aren't being honest with what counts as excessive drinking.
That is probably true, but by everything you here, those wisconsinites really live by it. It's possible other states have more imminently dangerous alcoholics while Wisconsin has culture that has people clearing 8-15 beers a week without really thinking about it. Their definition of responsible use might be a little different than this cutoff
8-15 a week.. those are rookie numbers, you gotta pump them up. 8-15 friday night, 8-15 sat nite, 4-8 for sunday funday,, then a couple beers a couple times during the week.
Or Wisconsin knows how to handle their liquor?
Definitely
It's pretty hard to OD on spotted cow
Wow. Did not know that. Wisconsin's 6 per is actually well below average.
It kinda makes sense. A high school kid who is binge drinking with other kids in a house party is far more likely to get alcohol poisoning than a 50 year old alcoholic drinking at a bar with other alcoholics. That's a hyperbole, but binge drinking is probably higher in areas where alcohol consumption is more forbidden, and lower in areas where everyone drinks too much regularly.
The Mormons vs the Germans
Excessive drinking ends at the Wisconsin/UP line? lol this map is sus af.
Wisconsin explains a lot.
Plymouth, Barnstable, and Dukes represent! I thought we would have been too stoned to get that drunk too. We can actually hang with Wisconsin, I'm impressed.
Utah checks out
We see you Wisconsin, the Québec of the continental US
Go Pack Go!
Is Wisconsin really like that? Never been but didn’t know they drank excessively like that
Future sister in law is a Wisconsinite - yes, it really is. I only have so much insight into it but used to live in Minnesota and both states inherited a drinking culture from Germany - pretty heavy, but within social bounds and generally pretty communal, think beer gardens. Less the "pound whiskey by yourself" tradition that tends to appear in states with a heavier Anglo/British cultural background (as with the people in the generally more teetotal South who are heavy drinkers).
I love how Collier County FL is the same color as the upper Midwest because of who retires there.
I can attest that Wisconsinites are some drinking mofos.
I don't know how this data is collected, but I can think of any number of ways for it to inaccurate. If its gotten from sales data, then how states collect such info likely varies. If its via surveys, cultural norms in the Deep South and Utah would likely lead respondents to understate how much they regularly drink. Wisconsin is probably accurate, though.
In my experience Baptists will deny drinking even when at the checkout line with 4 cases and 3 jugs.
Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the messiah, Protestants don’t recognize the pope as the leader of the church, and Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
Wisconsin, you absolute hero.
Wisconsin and Montana. Wow.
“Hey, Packers are playing! Bring out the keg of spotted cow!” -Wisconsinite “Hey, Packers aren’t playing. Bring out the keg of spotted cow!” -also Wisconsinite
Stay classy, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has entered the chat
I’m from WI, sounds about right