Do people in North America drink
 

I was just out with two canadians tonight and somehow the topic of alcohol consumption cropped up.

They both pretty much agreed that you North Americans are lightweights when it comes to drinking.

We had about 3 pints of beer and a third of a bottle of wine, before his canadian girlfriend joined us and we went to a restaurant and had another couple of bottles of wine.

None of us thought we had had that much to drink, certainly compared to boozy nights.

But I was surprised to hear from my canadian friend that people don't really go out drinking in the same way over the other side of the atlantic.

He said you get the Frat guys drinking lager and then the real alcoholics drinking shots. But not so much of going out with friends having a few beers down the local.

We always seem to get a bad rep in the uk for drinking, is it justified?

Are you North Americans lightweights or was he just a pissed up canadian?

Well, wouldn't YOU drink a lot too if you were Canadian?

I think Americans can handle their own against the world when it comes to alcohol, but I do think that there are places in the world where total drunkeness is socially acceptable, if not encouraged. There also seem to be certain groups of people that have the 'drinking gene' They include, but are not limited to: the irish, mexicans, south africans, aussies, swedes, and germans. Several years ago I had a hurricane drinking contest in New Orleans with a brit and a south african. I was toast after 7 hurricanes, but they kept going.

I don't know what the fuck kind of Canadian you were hanging out with, but we drink... a lot.

Please accept my apologies for not including the Canucks on the 'drinking gene' list. Also, Canadian strip clubs are the best!

Oh no. he drinks, but he is half English. To be fair he did say that there were certain areas of Canada that drunk. I think his comments were aimed mainly at people south of your border.

a quick google returned these results from 2001:

per capita alcohol consumption
Europe: 10.41 Liters per adult over 15yrs
N America: 8.51 Liters per Adult over 15yrs

Doesn't specify what type of alcohol but just generalizes alcohol. Light beer does have 20% less alcohol than most full strength beer (~4% vs ~5+%), and I would guess half of our consumption is light lager. That would reduce our intake another 10% overall.

I don't drink at all so maybe I'm bringing down the average somewhat.

I'm an Irish Canadian in Ontario and we can hold our own in the valley. Domestic beer tends to be higher in %. Maybe its the heat now driving people to drink more, but I worked in a wine store, and people hit it pretty hard every day.

And space boy - the GST just went down 1% but the expidite tax is going up so if anything in the end it'll be more.
I guess I shouldn't be defending that...

I really don't think you are :(