r/history • u/cashobar • 19d ago
Do people drink less alcohol in modern times, or more? At what point in western history did people drink “the most”? Discussion/Question
I’m posting this here because r/AskHistorians is pretty stringent on open questions like this and want more specific questions.
Anyways, apparently Gen Z and millennials drink less alcohol than previous generations.
There’s also a popular idea that people in the pre-modern era were all alcoholics, I’ve heard stories about workers during the early industrial revolution being paid partly in liquor (at the same time I’ve also heard a big reason why alcohol became stigmatized was because factory owners didn’t want their workers to show up drunk, which makes sense).
So, how much did people really drink back in the day? I assume it varies when you look at location and era, but at what point can we say that people drank the most on average? Is it really true that the average British person 500 years ago consumed more than a bottle of liquor per week?
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u/funkboxing 19d ago
Great book on the history of the subject:
Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition - William J. Rorabaugh
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u/Poisoneddosage 19d ago
It is an interesting question and it needs to be phrased specifically.
Who consumed more ethanol (I. E. Volume of pure ethanol equivalents) or who consumed for alcoholic beverages (beer, spirits etc)
For modern Europe it can be upwards of 15 litres a year which is 3 bottles of wine a week roughly, a 26oz/780ml bottle of 40% spirits a week or 2.5 bottles of beer (5% 330ml) daily.
All of these are far stronger than alcohols from preindustrial periods and to watered wine was the typical beverage for certain cultures where that was weaker than our wines already.
For beers the secondary fermentation is what kicks that percentage up so we can expect 1-3% with out it. Water it down and we have probably 0.5-1% as final.
If only consuming beer you'd need to down 4-8 litres of water beer a day to hit the same alcohol intake.
That seems somewhat not possible and you'd be pissing all day.
In that regard it makes sense why rates might be lower then.
Its just hard to consume that much.
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u/Wea_boo_Jones 17d ago
I also think that the types of wines and beers we drink today are way higher quality then back in the day. Filtering techniques, hygiene knowledge, custom yeast strains, temperature control etc. etc. must make a low-price supermarket wine seem like an extremely high-end wine compared to ancient standards.
I've heard that modern people drinking wine would be considered barbarians by ancient Greeks and Romans because we don't water our wine like they did. I do wonder if the reason for that is because wine today tastes really great and wine back then was pretty bad, so you'd water it out.
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u/fluffychien 19d ago
Wine growers were a powerful lobby in France up to the 20th century. I remember a lesson in primary school - in maybe 1962 - where we were taught how much wine it was safe to drink. As I remember, a labourer - e.g. someone digging ditches - was allowed 2 litres a day, about 3.5 pints... intellectual workers were allowed less, maybe half, and women even less, but it was still definitely enough to make you an alcoholic. The other wine story I remember - I think my father told me - was that in WW1, the "poilus" were allowed unlimited wine before storming enemy positions. The wine was awful but they drank it anyway.
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u/cheeeetoes 19d ago
I understand that Johnny Appleseed was looked at VERY differently in the past. Apples can just be put in a closed bucket, and by the miracle of fermentation, make a potent cider all on their own!. He was apparently thought of as a terrible person running around the US planting apple trees and making the men all drunks. That isn't how we think of him now.
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u/Trenttrip 19d ago
They definitely drank exponentially more. The image of men before modern times as invariably raging alcoholics is a bit off, but there is a grain of truth to it. Americans consumed, IIRC 3 times as much booze during the 19th century. People also smoked heavily, compromised their health in a million different other ways, and lived much shorter lives, remaining functional while shitfaced drunk most of the time is remarkably easy, as I can unfortunately tell you from experience, so it’s not unfeasible.
The usual talking point about people drinking booze instead of water is also a bit misleading, if technically correct. People have always drank water, and alcohol in anything more than the most diluted form is a strong diuretic. So they definitely weren’t sipping Jack Daniels for hydration. Back then a lot of beer was weaker and watered down, imagine drinking hard seltzer even weaker than a white claw all day instead of water. Definitely still alcoholism, but functional alcoholism
What you also have to understand is that prohibition has forever gone down in history as an idiotic and futile attempt to control human behavior, and in terms of intent, it basically was. Within long term historical parameters, however it was actually a huge success, cut drinking exponentially, and had positive effects on American culture. The health positives of reducing drinking across the board far outweigh all of the people killed in gang wars between bootleggers for a decade
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u/VariantX23 19d ago
Very true. There is a correlation in alcohol consumption and distance to hospital. Perhaps just 80 years ago it wasn’t a strange site to see men pack alcohol with their lunch. The general idea is that alcohol keeps doctors away as it may or may not have prophylactic effects.
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u/Clapbakatyerblakcat 19d ago edited 19d ago
The 19th century saw a huge boom in ethanol consumption in the US due to the confluence of incredibly productive corn growing in the Midwest, the industrial revolution kicking into high gear and cities’ populations exploding, and trains making whisky cheap to transport to the population centers on the east coast. Corn/grain was grown faster than it could be eaten by people or livestock and ethanol has an effectively infinite shelf (barrel) life.
Before the Civil War, most distilled spirit consumed by Americans was imported rum from the Caribbean and brandy from France and relatively expensive compared to locally produced beer. After the Civil War, corn whisky became much cheaper than beer/wine and people got seriously drunk.
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u/cheeeetoes 19d ago
I think you are really looking at this from a modern perspective and may be off. Most people in the 1800's really created their own stuff. Be it furniture, alcohol, food, whatever. You bought nails and hammers and made the rest! If you needed a chair, you made it. If you wanted a beer, a neighbor was brewing somewhere. If you wanted Italian food, you had a garden.
One apple tree in your back yard supplied enough material for alcoholic cider all yr! The price of things , unless you lived in New York City, really was irrelevant.
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u/saltandvinegarrr 19d ago
Maybe true of homesteaders, but lots of people did not have a plot of their own, or the means to maintain it.
The timeframe the op is talking about is from 1850-1900, when the US urban population increased from 20% to 40%. With this urbanisation also came an increase in people who would buy their alcohol instead having an apple tree.
Also, the average consumption of cider was much greater than a single apple tree could produce. This too was an industry
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u/cheeeetoes 19d ago
Well , you have typed it up and put it on the internet. So now that means it MUST be true!
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u/Vast-Combination4046 19d ago
To "actually" your "actually" average people didn't use nails much since they took a long time for a black smith to produce individually by hand. Most furniture would have been hand made to have wood pieces joined together by "joinery techniques" like mortis and tenon and dovetails that interlock like puzzle pieces and possibly being sturdier than if it was built with nails. Nails were mostly used for horse shoes. Timber framing was often secured by pegs made on site. It's amazing what you can make with an axe, a saw and a chisel. Put the chisel at a specific angle in a block of wood and you have a plane to smooth out your work pieces. Tbh the most difficult tool to come by in history would have been the saw so lots of work before the industrial revolution wouldn't have used them for much to keep them in good condition.
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u/throwawaydragon99999 19d ago
exactly, that started to change in the mid 1800s as farm output exponentially increased with technology and therefore made farming less profitable, and urbanization exploded
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u/benellihitchhiker 19d ago
For many years alcohol was the safest thing to drink, in many places. The water would kill you.
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u/VVillyD 19d ago
That's true, but they didn't drink like we did. They were mixing alcohol with water. It was more like sipping on light beer or wine coolers all day rather than pounding several cocktails over the course of a couple of hours.
Sure, they binge drank, but not on a daily basis.
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u/saltandvinegarrr 19d ago
The alcohol content Beer isn't enough to be a disinfectant already, if you dilute it with water you are doing nothing at all.
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u/VVillyD 18d ago
In modern beer. Historically people used to brew a much thicker, higher alcohol content beer (and wine), then mix it with water when it was served.
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u/saltandvinegarrr 18d ago
Unless that beer is more 50% alcohol its not doing any disinfecting. Wine is different, but its not the alcohol that's doing the antibacterial work.
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u/War_Hymn 17d ago
The best lab grown yeast strains today can hit about 20% alcohol or slightly more during fermentation. Wild yeast usually poops out at around 10-12%. Starting with a thicker (higher gravity) mash or wort might not help since high sugar content can actually inhibit yeast and result in slow or stopped fermentation.
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u/benellihitchhiker 19d ago
Generally you were frowned upon for getting too drunk. But more exposure means more room for error.
Life expectancy was in your late 30s and many lives miles and miles from neighbors.
I want to say it didn't happen as much but more than likely it happened a lot more than we have records on.
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u/DoctorMittensPHD 19d ago
Yeah but that early life expectancy in part is skewed due to high infant mortality
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u/benellihitchhiker 19d ago
Possibly. I never looked at it in that detail.
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u/OneCatch 19d ago
Then don’t assert it!
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u/benellihitchhiker 19d ago
I said life expectancy. I NEVER tried to specify infant mortality or not.
The posting party pulled a fact from their rear and never proved it. So the statement is dismissed.
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u/OneCatch 19d ago
The point is that it’s inappropriate to talk about a ‘late 30s’ life expectancy in the context of alcohol consumption - as if it were a significant factor either way - because it simply wasn’t. The diseases which killed infants in droves and caused the most significant part of that life expectancy figure were not affected by alcohol either way.
At most one might claim that alcohol abuse and alcohol related accidents were partly responsible for the life expectancy if you survived to 1 8 being maybe 55 or 60 rather than 75 or 80.
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u/benellihitchhiker 19d ago
The point is that it’s inappropriate to talk about a ‘late 30s’ life expectancy in the context of alcohol consumption
Everybody's life expectancy was in the 30s whether you drank or not.
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u/VVillyD 19d ago
Late 30s isn't entirely accurate for life expectancy. If you survived past early childhood you had a decent enough chance of getting to your 50s. The aggregated average is misleading due to the high rate of infant and early childhood deaths.
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u/saltandvinegarrr 19d ago
You cannot hydrate yourself with drinks containing a disinfecting level of alcohol. You would die very quickly.
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u/War_Hymn 17d ago
The water would kill you.
The water might kill you, but like most animals, humans have an immune system and we can become more immune or tolerant of dangerous water-borne pathogens via biological evolution. English sailors of the 1700s were reported to have pulled water from the dirty, sewage infested Thames at times.
In any case, our ancestors weren't completely oblivious to what counted as clean water sources (which did exist), and we generally drank water when it was available. The ancient Greeks and others collected rainwater and stored it for use later in limed cisterns under their homes. Springs were generally the preferred source of drinking water in most regions up until the late 19th century, as porous rock filters water flowing underground and rendered it relatively safe for consumption. It's from such springs that the Roman connected their aqueducts to. In Jericho - one of the oldest human cities - the inhabitants took clean water from the flow of the local Sultan's Spring, which continues to provide 500 to 700 metric tonnes of water a day to the local population of 20,000.
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u/dawind22 19d ago
Gin cursed Friend, with Fury fraught,
Makes human race a Prey;
It enters by a deadly Draught,
And steals our Life away.
Virtue and Truth, driv'n to Despair,
It's Rage compells to fly,
But cherishes, with hellish Care,
Theft, Murder, Perjury.
Damn'd Cup! that on the vitals preys,
That liquid Fire contains
Which madness to the Heart Conveys
And rolls it thro' the Veins.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hogarth-gin-lane-t01799
Henry Fielding, a friend of Hogarth's, who became a lawyer and a Westminster magistrate in addition to pursuing his career as a dramatist and author, wrote a tract in 1751
"A new kind of Drunkenness is lately sprung up amongst us-which-if not put a stop to, will infallibly destroy a great Part of the inferior People... the intoxicating Draught itself disqualifies them from using any honest Means to acquire it, at the same time that it removes all Sense of Fear and Shame and emboldens them to commit every wicked and desperate Enterprise. . ."
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u/Thebitterestballen 19d ago
Well I hope he was a better lawyer than writer...
Who rhymes fraught with draught and fly with purgery???
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u/Cuneiform_scribbles 19d ago
Funny, but those are "eye rhymes," which used to be considered (still are, in theory) fair game for poets.
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u/sitquiet-donothing 19d ago
It depends. Some places like Russia have historically had heavy alcohol consumption, while in large swaths of the world alcohol is forbidden or looked down on historically.
Alcohol was often seen as a commodity, like coffee, flour, etc. in many societies, to be rationed out or kept on hand, however many peoples carefully diluted whiskey, wine, and beer with water so as not to get drunk. Being drunk is usually, even in societies that tolerate alcohol consumption, looked down upon historically. The "binge drinking" phenomenon is actually rather new. The attitude of "Why else would you consume alcohol if not to get drunk?" is not a historically shared sentiment.
During prohibition, the stats show that worker absenteeism went from 10% down to 3%. This means at least 10% of the population at the time was regularly getting drunk enough to miss work because of it. Now the rates for absenteeism range from .5% for light drinkers and 8.9% for heavy/problem drinkers. At least among the working class, alcohol consumption seems to have dropped. I wish they kept better stats back then so we could see the difference between "light" and heavy drinkers then too, that would give us a better idea.
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u/reverendjeff 19d ago
This really depends a lot in how far back you go, and what part of the world we're discussing. Since you specified "western", I'm going to assume Europe for pre-colonial times.
In many cases, towns and villages sprung up near potable water sources, but those sources were quickly contaminated by washing and dumping. As a result, the distillation process proved the most effective means of ensuring a beverage was safe, so wine and beer (depending on specific locale) became the drinks of choice pretty much everywhere for everyone. That's not to say fresh water wasn't available... it was... just not as readily available as booze. However, booze prior to the industrial revolution had a much lower alcohol content, as it wasn't distilled and casked for nearly as long.
All that to say, yes, people in pre-industrial times did drink more frequently, but the historical record does not really show rampant drunkenness. That was still frowned upon by most of society.
I don't think this actually answers your question with any specificity, but I hope you find it helpful nonetheless.
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u/Skookum_J 19d ago edited 19d ago
1800’s are likely the peak of alcohol consumption (at least for the US)
Most estimates put the avg alcohol consumption per adult at somewhere around 7 gallons a year. Today, its closer to 2 gallons per adult per year. These estimates are gallons of pure ethanol, so convert that to say 80 proof liquor and that 7 gallons is closer to 10.5 17.5 gallons of whisky or rum. That’s a standard fifth bottle every week. And we have to remember, this is just an average. Women traditionally drank much less then men, and there were folks that drank less, or didn’t drink at all. It wasn’t uncommon for the average man to drink the equivalent of 2 bottles of rum a week. That's close to 5 shots a day, every day.
Edit. My math was off. turning 7 gal of pure ethanol to 80 proof is 17.5 gallons, which comes out to 1.7 fifths a week.
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u/Bergeroned 19d ago edited 19d ago
Several US Presidents were famous drunks, and US Grant wasn't the worst of them. Martin Van Buren was nicknamed, "Blue Whiskey Van" for his drinking prowess.
George Bush's ancestor Franklin Pierce ran over a person in a horse-and-buggy DWI while president and got away with it. When he was boxed out of reelection he said, "there's nothing left to do but get drunk."
It is important to remember that while people didn't understand pathogens, they knew they lived in water, and water was considered to be basically poisonous as a result. While most of the Asian world hit upon boiling water for tea, Europeans dealt with the problem through the antiseptic properties of alcohol.
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u/Trenttrip 19d ago
Even the ones who weren’t drunks often imbibed pretty generously, back then alcohol was kinda seen as a mans chemical it was okay to indulge in if you could handle it. John Adams drank beer sunup to sundown and Harry Truman used to start each day with a shot of tequila to wake himself up.
Not a US president obviously, but Winston Churchill was also known to consume about a bottle of booze a day
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u/Sleazyryder 19d ago
80 proof is 40% so something doesn't add up.
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u/Skookum_J 19d ago
Crap. my math was off. That's what I get for trying to do math sober 😉
Edited it to add the right calculation. Still, the results are similar. Average man on the street drank the equivalent of more then 5 shots a day.
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u/skyblueandblack 18d ago
That's what I get for trying to do math sober
Hey, now -- know your limits. Never drink and derive!
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u/yeet212501 19d ago
I’d say less because back when america was young, people would drink way more alcohol than water because when they drank water it would make them sick because they didn’t sanitize the water but they did sanitize their alcohol with out knowing. They didn’t boil their drinking water but they boiled the water to make alcohol just simply because that’s how you make alcohol
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u/bowties_bullets1418 19d ago
As far as sheer volume, now of course. But The per person average was higher then I believe because it was safer to drink if I recall.
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u/Cuneiform_scribbles 19d ago
Not that it's directly relevant to your question, but the ancient Egyptians were known to party quite a bit:
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u/Strict_Parsley2301 19d ago
Id say laye medieval times. Back when you had to do back-breaking work on another persons land to get by, the pub was the one time of day where you could talk with your buddies and get away from it all. Surfs didnt drink much alchohol, but middle-higher class peasants/farmers did. A lot! Plus back then most people in europe were lactose-intolerant so the only options for a drink was water or beer
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u/[deleted] 19d ago edited 19d ago
[deleted]
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u/Kellymcdonald78 19d ago
Although most beers and wines of that time had less alcohol content than today’s
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u/War_Hymn 17d ago edited 17d ago
Keep in mind, high proof distilled liquor like whiskey and gin weren't really a thing until after the 1500s, when the process of distillation became more widely known and applied for making distilled liquor in Europe and other places. New and improved agricultural practices from the 1600s onwards also increased the grain supply and allow more of it to be diverted from food use to producing distilled liquor.
In 18th/19th century Great Britain, distilled alcoholic beverages like gin were often produced from bad or spoiled grain unfit for eating or brewing, and this made it cheaper than traditional drinks like beer or wine and it soon became the drink of choice for the poor and downtrodden. The result was a rampant epidemic of alcoholism among the inner city populace.
Similar trends happened elsewhere in Europe and their colonies. By the 1770s, it was estimated that the average American colonist consumed 3.5 gallons of pure alcohol a year, equivalent to 8.75 gallons of 40% ABV whiskey. By the 1830s, estimated consumption had doubled to 7 gallons of pure alcohol per year, driven by the availability of cheap whiskey made possible by large-scale settlement of the Midwest and the resulting rise in corn production. In comparison, modern Americans consume just under 3 gallon of alcohol a year.
Widespread alcoholism and the problems it created in American society became a serious issue through the mid and late 1800s, spurring the beginning of the Temperance movement and creation of anti-alcohol political/social groups like the Anti-Saloon League in response. After the American Civil War, we see increasing attempts to regulate/curb alcohol consumption on a local government level, which ultimately led to the Volstead Act of 1920 when alcohol became prohibited on a national level in the US.
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u/Sgt_Colon 19d ago
Because the myth that pre modern people didn't know how to obtain safe water and that alcohol was a safe alternative is being repeatedly spread in this thread, I thought I'd link to two of /r/AskHistorians answers disabusing this notion from their VFAQ:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7b8jea/is_it_true_most_people_in_medieval_europe_drank/dpgj9wp/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2bewpo/what_factors_made_beer_so_important_to_the/cj76n6f/
TLDR: people in the past knew about and could obtain safe water, preferred alcoholic beverages instead largely for taste and were, prior to Pasteur's work, about as prone to spoilage.