How much did early Americans drink? A lot.
Today, even Belarus with the highest consumption rate on earth at 4.62, doesn’t come close to Americans in the 1830’s. In comparison, Americans in 2018, drink about 2.42 gallons of ethanol a year. Still a high number.
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By 1830, American citizens drank 7 gallons of ethanol a year per capita. (Most of them drank whiskey.) That’s close to two bottles of whiskey a week.
According to an article from Paste Magazine,
“Staggering” is the appropriate word for the consequences of this sort of drinking. In modern terms, those seven gallons are the equivalent of 1.7 bottles of a standard 80-proof liquor per person, per week—nearly 90 bottles a year for every adult in the nation, even with abstainers (and there were millions of them) factored in. Once again figuring per capita, multiply the amount Americans drink today by three and you’ll have an idea of what much of the nineteenth century was like.”
Today, even Belarus with the highest consumption rate on earth at 4.62, doesn’t come close to Americans in the 1830’s. In comparison, Americans in 2018, drink about 2.42 gallons of ethanol a year. Still a high number.
