Tag Archives: pandemic drinking

Stop the presses! The U.S. is not falling down in a drunken stupor

wine and health
What do you mean, we’re not all passed out drunk? But a bunch of studies say so.

Remember all that neo-Prohibitionist foolishness about increased pandemic drinking? The latest Gallup poll offers more evidence that the Drys were wrong

Fewer U.S. adults are drinking, and those who are are drinking less. That’s the finding from the most recent Gallup poll about alcohol use in the U.S. – and it directly contradicts every scare story, fear-mongering headline, and panic-stricken Internet alert that we’ve seen during the pandemic.

Gallup’s survey, generally regarded as the most accurate overview of U.S. alcohol consumption, found that 60 percent of U.S. adults reported drinking wine or beer in 2020 – down from 65 percent in 2019. In addition, our average weekly number of drinks fell to 3.6 from 4.0

So I guess we’re not all passed out on the couch, are we?

In fact, says Gallup, the number of Americans who drink may be at a 20-year low. As recently as 2010, two-thirds of us said we drank alcohol. And, says the study, the average number of weekly drinks is the lowest since 2001 ”and is more in line with reported alcohol consumption in the late 1990s and early 2000s than with more recent readings.”

In other words, almost every single story warning about pandemic drinking, including the scare piece in my beloved New York Times, may have been wrong. Or, as one analyst told me when I wrote about pandemic drinking earlier this year, it would have been almost impossible for us to drink more, given that bars and restaurants were closed for the first part of 2020 and that hardly anyone went to a party.

Once again, this is not to discount the horrors of alcoholism or to infer that’s it’s OK to drink to excess. As noted here many times, I know the ruin alcoholism produces. Rather, it’s to remind everyone that drinking is not cigarette smoking, and that wine with dinner does not lead to death, ruin, and destruction like some 21st century version of “Reefer Madness.”

More about the Neo-Prohibitionists and drinking
• Binge drinking during the pandemic — or not
• Has wine with dinner been turned into binge drinking?
• Are the neo-Prohibitionists winning the debate about drinking?

Winebits 699: Wild boars, pandemic drinking, liquor lawsuit

This week’s wine news: Wild boars attack supermarket wine shopper, plus a historical look at pandemic drinking and another liquor lawsuit

• Attack of the wild boars: The U.S. has neo-Prohibitionists; Italy has wild boars. England’s Guardian newspaper reported that “a herd” of wild boars ambushed a woman who had just come out of a supermarket near Rome. The “four adults and two young boars” pursued the woman and stole her groceries (which I assume included wine, because it’s Italy and not the U.S.). The video at the top of the page shows what happened. Apparently, boar attacks like this are not uncommon in Italian cities; the country may have as many as 2 million wild boars.

• Pandemic drinking: An otherwise interesting piece about alcohol drinking during the Black Death has one fatal flaw (and yes, pun fully intended). The author, in recounting how pre-Modern Europe drank its way through the bubonic plague, wants to wag a finger at us for drinking so much during the current pandemic. But he omits one important fact: It wasn’t safe to drink water in most cities before the Industrial Revolution gave us modern sewerage systems. If you did, you likely died from something like typhoid, cholera, or dysentery. So when James Brown quotes Daniel Defoe saying an English grocer going into quarantine with his family had “12 hogsheads of beer; casks and rundlets containing four varieties of wine (canary, malmsey, sack and tent; 16 gallons of brandy; and “many sorts of distill’d waters” (spirits)” that’s because he had nothing else to drink. One has to watch those neo-Prohibitionists – they can be tricky.

• Peaky Blinders, indeed: The WC’s fascination with liquor trademark and intellectual property lawsuits dates to the blog’s early days and Cristal v. Cristalino. So I never pass up an opportunity to share another one. This time, the company that made the “Peaky Blinders” TV series is suing the company that makes “Peaky Blinder” liquor and beer. A U.S. federal court judge ruled for the liquor company, but not to worry – there will certainly lots of appeals and we can follow this story for much longer.

Winebits 680: Drink Local, pandemic wine, wine tariffs

drink localThis week’s wine news: Supermarkets embracing Drink Local during the pandemic, plus one more study about pandemic drinking and wine tariffs

• Drink Local thrives: Supermarket News reports that “Retailers deepened their relationships with local beer brewers and winemakers in 2020 to satisfy customers and support their local economies.” Which, of course, is something those of us who have long believed in local wine are very glad to see. The story looks at one California grocer, where virtual tastings with local wineries have far exceeded expectations.

• One more study: The Wine Curmudgeon has been keeping close track of the various pandemic drinking studies, if only because the results show hat we’re drinking less, drinking more, and passing out in front of the TV set – or all three.. The latest study comes from a browser app that offers retail discounts; its findings seem just as reliable as any of the others, which is to say not necessarily reliable at all. There’s no methodology in the release, for one thing, and it claims rice wine sales have increased 37 percent – more than any other kind of wine, more than most spirits, and more than something called “imported craft beer.”

• Whoops: About 10 days ago, U.S. trade officials said they would extend and increase tariffs on a variety of French products, including much wine that had not been taxed in October 2019. Then, at the end of last week, they said they wouldn’t up the tariff, after all. And then maybe they did, depending on news reports this week. Don’t worry if you’re confused. So am I, and even the normally reliable BBC seems confused in the story in the link. Just know that the situation remains the seem as it was before the end of the year, awaiting the new administration.