How much do Americans drink?

In a different life, the reason I woke up late this morning would have been related to something awesome. Up all night with some hot blonde, drunk off my ass swimming in the Pacific or even getting stoned at a midnight movie...these are all great reasons to be late and miserable at work the next day.

Throw in one of the classic excuses in the repertoire that can be used for being late. I tend to use highly specific excuses that likely won't be questioned or come back to me such as "I was pulled over on suspicion of driving a stolen car. Turns out, everyone in LA drives a Silver Mini Cooper and they are oft stolen, who knew?" See how I made myself the victim there? The fact that I am an hour late no longer matters. In fact my superior may buy me lunch today or at least a seasonal themed coffee drink from Starbucks.

Also good excuses:
- My neighbor's apartment was broken into, I saw the assailant fleeing and had to give the police a statement. (It helps to put a layer of separation in between you and the event, if YOUR apartment is broken into, people will keep bringing it up)

- I saw a bicyclist get a flat, I offered him a ride to a repair shop (hero)

- A stray dog entered my apartment through an open window in my apartment, I spent the morning looking for his owner. (If you have ANY pictures of dogs on your phone, you have evidence for your alibi...plus, people love dogs)

ALAS, I did not get drunk last night. I did not see a midnight movie and I most certainly did not have female company. In fact, I planned on going out drinking, but then settled for downloading a new Stephen King novel and reading in bed. But in my haste of finding out if Jake Eppling would stop the JFK assassination, I forgot to set an alarm and I woke up late. These are the realities of your late 20's.

To make matters worse, upon leaving the house I saw a spider the size of a small rabbit just chilling on the exterior of my front door.

Terrified, I did nothing.

Now I live in fear that this spider will eventually be my undoing because I watch too many movies.

Do you remember in Saving Private Ryan when Tom Hanks lets the German prisoner go, only to be killed by him later in the movie? (SPOILER ALERT)

Well that's what that spider is going to do to me. From here on out I am instituting a scorched Earth policy on all insects. Sorry guys.

But anyway, in between 7 cups of coffee this morning and a half tab of Adderall I came upon an infographic, that I would like to attempt to break down. The folks over at CompareCamp put together a lengthy infographic that compares all sorts of shit, but I would like to chiefly analyze this...

Ok, so the first thing that struck me...god dammit, metric. I'm going to have to do some math to Americanize these results so I can make sense of them. Let's start with the beer.

633 ml equates to roughly 21.4 ounces...is that some sort of standard beer bottle measurement somewhere? *does Google search for 633 ml beer, finds Asahi, Japan's number one beer*

GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

So apparently your average American drinks 121.8 Asahi-sized beers, but again that means nothing to me...so using some middle school Algebra let's convert that to your classic 12 oz Keystone Ice can.

Um...

121.8/21.4=x/12

Ok fuck it, I completely forget Algebra, surely there is a calculator for this:

Good news...there is!

Bad news, if Americans drink 122 bottles of 21.4 ounce beers, they would drink MORE 12 ounce cans...not 68, math is hard.

Ok after interviewing all the people in the office (like that scene in Little Big League when the Minnesota twins help Billy Haywood with his homework) it seems I missed a step. Twelve ounces is 56% of 21.4. So I think we can just do .56x=122.

x=218.

That sounds right. An average American drinks 218 12 ounce beers a year. 18 beers a month. 4ish beers a week. .6 beers a day.

These results seem...shockingly unsurprising, perhaps even high.  Despite 30 percent of our population being unable to drink legally, many people choosing not to drink for religious or other reasons and the fact that many drinkers choose something other that beer, we are putting back over four beers a week as a country. This ranks us 14th in the world in beer consumption per capita. Yay.

Number 1 in the world? The Czechs! They drink about double what we do (8 beers a week, I would like to hear a song about this set to The Beatles, '8 days a week') because seemingly there is nothing else to do in Eastern Europe. (Or they just like beer more than liquor and wine)

Of course, I drink about 20 beers a week, roughly 5x the American average, but given that I'm a former frat guy in my 20's living in a major city, that doesn't seem to egregious. Alas, I would still be considered a lush in Prague.

Other general thoughts on the top 10? Europe likes to drink, especially the Eastern part of the continent. Germany, Ireland and Austria are basically countries founded on beer and big ups to Venezuela finishing in the top 10. I think you've earned a visit.

ONTO THE VINO.

Now these results disappointed me to say the least.

Ten. Measley. Liters.

That is pathetic America.

I probably drink 10 liters of white wine a year, and that shit is disgusting.

Even if you account for the fact that your average American bottle of wine is only 750 ml, that ups us to a whopping 13 bottles annually.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BASIC BITCHES GONE? Every Thought Catalog article I read would have me believe that the 20 and 30 somethings of America are putting down a personal bottle every Tuesday while watching reruns of Sex and the City and crying about a recent break-up. There are 52 Tuesdays a year...and even the people that "don't even really party anymore" are doing 'nice couples dinners' with 4 to 5 bottles minimum. 

SO SOMEONE IS LYING.

I mean I do a minimum of 2 bottles of wine every Thursday at the Santa Monica pier concert. Clearly more American cities need beachside concerts to increase our general wine consumption.

Seriously, we rank a dismal 56th in the world in per capita wine consumption. The US shouldn't rank 56th in anything, except maybe Ebola deaths.

Meanwhile, the padres up in the Vatican are pounding an alarming 74 liters a year! Ever wondered how a priest can live a life without sex? It appears the answer is to be constantly wine drunk! But then again when I am wine drunk I begin to crave sexual attention...Aha! I have solved the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, they were just too turnt and the alter boys were the closest.

NOT AN EXCUSE VATICAN. Perhaps they should allow priests to marry.

Thoughts on the rest of the list...who likes wine? Rich people!

Andorra, France, Switzerland a bunch of islands. Apparently there are truth in stereotypes.

The only country that appears on both lists is Croatia, so either life there is miserable or awesome.
I'm going with the latter.

Yacht week 2015, see ya there.