Author: James Anderson

Alcohol Consumption

Since then, drinking in the U.S. has fluctuated, with a high in the 1970s and 1980s, when the average American drank 2.75 gallons per year. In the late 1910s, Americans were drinking an average of 2 gallons of alcohol per year. However, the number of alcohol-related deaths among women has increased by 85 percent from 1999 to 2017.

What some suggest should be the fourth category of alcoholic beverages, sales of ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages increased from “7 percent in 2019 to 11 percent for the first half of 2021,” with several sources indicating that the RTD market will continue to grow. In fact, the market share for hard seltzer decreased slightly between 2020 and 2021 due to “increased competition from crossover categories like RTDs.” In 2021, Gallup, Inc. reported that 60% of U.S. adults drank alcoholic beverages, which decreased from 65% as reported in 2019. The average number of drinks consumed in the previous seven days also decreased. In 2019, consumers aged 18 years and older drank, on average, 4.0 drinks in a seven-day period, but in 2021 that average was 3.6 drinks.

The “seltzer boom brought variety and flavor to customers,” which encourages them to be more willing to try new flavors in other beverage categories. While rose wine has grown in popularity over the past few years, according to the Beverage Trade Network, the “excitement about and growth in the segment may be waning.” You may wonder, “How much is a premium-and-above bottle of wine or spirits?” The following table provides price bands as published by IWSR, Forbes.com, Winefolly.com, and IRI.

In fact, there are many serious side effects of excessive drinking, including liver cancer, high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease. “I think people sort of forgot all the problems [with alcohol],” William Kerr, senior scientist at the California-based Public Health Institute’s Alcohol Research Group, said. The total estimated number of deaths by country from 1990 to 2019 is found here.

When we look at national averages in this way, there is no distinct relationship between income and alcohol consumption. As shown by clusters of countries (for example, Middle Eastern countries with low alcohol intake but high GDP per capita), we tend to see strong cultural patterns that tend to alter the standard income-consumption relationship we may expect. Between 2019 and 2022, while overall growth in the number of U.S. wineries grew 10% and the number of Californian wineries grew 7%, those in the Eastern U.S. (27 states east of the Mississippi River) grew 13%, accounting for 28% of the total wineries in the U.S.

Alcohol consumption by type of alcoholic beverage

U.S. consumer demand for beer continues to shift to “premium options and new and exciting alternatives” when selecting the beverage to consume off-premise. Such offerings that have garnered consumer attention include craft beers (annual production of fewer than 6 million barrels) and imported and domestic super-premium beers (which were categorized in 2012 as priced at $22 and higher per case). Decanter’s January 2022 “Top wine Trends for 2022” listed the average consumer’s “inability…to afford” wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne.

1. This includes 32% whose most recent drink was in the last 24 hours, and 37% who most recently had one within the last two to seven days.
2. It is possible to switch this data to any other country or region in the world.
3. Global trends on alcohol abstinence show a mirror image of drinking prevalence data.
4. Drug use disorders are often classified within the same category as mental health disorders — research and data on mental health can be found on our topic page here.

It is possible to switch this data to any other country or region in the world. This shows the expenditure on alcohol in the United States, differentiated by where the alcohol has been purchased and consumed. Data on alcohol expenditure is typically limited to North America, Europe, and Oceania. Hasegawa, the following are examples of beer and food pairings based on the beer’s flavor profile.

Global wine consumption

To account for the differences in alcohol content of different alcoholic drinks (e.g., beer, wine, spirits), this is reported in liters of pure alcohol per year. The results in the chart show the increased risk of developing alcohol dependency (we show results for illicit drug dependency in our topic page on drug use) for someone with a given mental health disorder (relative to those without). For example, a value of 3.6 for bipolar disorder indicates that illicit drug dependency became more than three times more likely in individuals with bipolar disorder than those without. The risk of an alcohol use disorder is highest in individuals with intermittent explosive disorder, dysthymia, ODD, bipolar disorder, and social phobia.

With that cultural shift, researchers have also found that binge drinking and alcohol-related deaths are rising most dramatically among women. Drinking — and binge drinking — among women appears to be one of the causes of rising alcohol statistics. Hop water is a “carbonated beverage made with hops,” which “tastes a lot like beer, but contains zero alcohol, as well as zero calories, carbs, sugar or gluten.” The net positive change for Cabernet Sauvignon and Red Blends was 26% and 33%, respectively, for men and 10% and 40% for women. The net positive change for Red Blends was 22% for those under 40 years of age and 36% for those aged 40 and older. Whilst the World Health Organization (WHO) and most national guidelines typically quantify one unit of alcohol as equal to 10 grams of pure alcohol, the metric used as a ‘standard measure’ can vary across countries.

Rate of premature deaths due to alcohol

Pertaining to price, those priced at $15 and above experienced positive growth in sales compared to 2020, with the greatest growth for wines at the $25 and high price tier. NielsenIQ reported that growth was driven by super-premium (75cl bottle priced between $15.99 and $29.99) and ultra-premium (between $30 and $49.99) price tiers. Nearly half of both generations, 47% Gen Z drinkers and 48% Millennial drinkers, consumed alcohol to relax.

Of the states in the region, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia experienced the greatest increase in the number of wineries with growth rates of 14, 12, and 10%, respectively (Adams, 2022). According to Numerator, 90% of Millennials purchased alcohol during the 52-week period ending in May 2021, compared to 84% of 21 and older Gen Z shoppers. Gen Zs reasons for not buying included “alcohol’s impact on their mood, level of alertness, and even image on social media.” Per-capita alcohol consumption peaked in the early 1980s at 3.28 gallons, or almost 700 drinks.