The surprising U.S. states that drink the most spirits

The surprising U.S. states that drink the most spirits

The surprising U.S. states that drink the most spirits

The consensus is in: people love their booze. According to 2018 data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, certain states are drinking more spirits than others. Since the numbers compiled don’t yet include current trends for 2020, it will be interesting to see how the quarantine will affect these numbers (we’re going to go out on a limb here and say probably A LOT). Even so it’s fun to know how your state stacks up against the rest. You may be surprised to know what the top-boozing state is!

The most hard-drinking state is …

New Hampshire! We’re thinking the “Live free or die” state motto is no coincidence here. According to these infographics produced by Vinepair, residents in New Hampshire toss back an average of 2.04 gallons of spirits per year. New Hampshire taking the top spot is likely due to its low tax on booze (surrrre). Delaware comes in second at 1.69 gallons of spirits per year with the District of Columbia (1.68 gallons) and Nevada (1.46 gallons) at three and four respectively. North Dakota (1.33 gallons) rounds out the top five states with nothing better to do than drink.

Which states are the least boozy?

Do the states on the top get the bragging rights or the ones on the bottom? At any rate, the least boozy state when it comes to spirits is actually West Virginia. It could be that they prefer wine and beer to hard liquor but either way they come in at the very bottom of the list with 0.47 gallons per person annually. Even Utah comes in higher at 0.57 gallons. The rest of the bottom five: Ohio (0.62 gallons), Arkansas (0.64 gallons) and Oklahoma (0.65 gallons) are all close.  

States that drink the most by volume

It’s probably no surprise that the highly populated states of California, Florida, Texas and New York drink the largest quantities of spirits by volume. Vermont rounds out the bottom of the list, consuming less than a million gallons per year. So if Vermont drinks the smallest quantity, by comparison how many gallons do California residents toss back? A whopping 69.1 million gallons!

Where the rest of the states stand

Want a closer look at where your state ranks in total alcohol consumption? World Population Review has all 50 states ranked. In total, residents of all 50 states guzzle about 570 million gallons of liquor each year. That’s not even counting the 914 million gallons of wine or 6 billion gallons of beer. And yes, it’s billions with a “b.” 

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