Per capita alcohol consumption in the United States has increased in the past couple of decades to reach 2.51 gallons of ethanol per capita in 2021. Beer has accounted for the largest share of the alcohol market in the United States over most of the last decade, but was overtaken by spirits for the first time in 2022. Health risks Constant and excessive alcohol use has been shown to cause many health complications and increase the risk of many diseases. For example, alcohol consumption increases the risk of various types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and liver disease. The cost of such health complications from alcohol is substantial. As of 2020, it was estimated that the health care costs alone from the abuse of alcohol in the United States were around 27 billion dollars a year. Liver cirrhosis A common health complication from the abuse of alcohol is liver cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is scarring of the liver from repeated injury. It can cause other health complications such as high blood pressure, bleeding, and infection, and can result in early death if left untreated. In 2019, there were over 24,000 alcohol-related liver cirrhosis deaths in the United States, almost double the number reported 15 years earlier.

New Hampshire is currently the state with the highest per capita alcohol consumption in the United States. Per capita alcohol consumption has increased since the mid-1990s, with beer as the most commonly consumed alcoholic beverage. The beer market in the U.S. was estimated to amount to over *** billion dollars by 2029. Binge drinking Although New Hampshire consumes the highest amount of alcohol per capita, it reports lower rates of binge drinking than other states. The states with the highest binge drinking rates include North Dakota, Iowa, and South Dakota. Binge drinking is typically defined as the consumption of 5 or more drinks within 2 hours for men and 4 or more drinks within 2 hours for women. Binge drinking is the most common form of excessive alcohol use and is associated with serious risks. Binge drinking risks Health risks associated with binge drinking include cancer, chronic diseases such as liver disease and heart disease, alcohol dependence, and unintentional injury such as from car crashes. Although the dangers of drinking and driving are clear, it remains a problem across the United States. In 2023, around 7** percent of those aged 21 to 25 reported driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol in the preceding year.

The alcohol consumption per capita ranking is led by Romania with 16.96 liters, while Georgia is following with 14.52 liters. In contrast, Bangladesh is at the bottom of the ranking with 0.01 liters, showing a difference of 16.95 liters to Romania. Depicted is the estimated alcohol consumption in the country or region at hand.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

Alcohol consumption among the US public is at a relatively similar rate in the 21st century as it was in the nineteenth. The first drop in consumption appeared in the 1860s and 1870s, due to the American Civil War and the period of economic recovery that followed. After this, consumption rose again until the First World War, before it fell from 9.7 liters per person per year in 1915 to 7.4 in 1919. Following the war, the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution came into effect, which prohibited the importation, manufacturing and sale (but not consumption) of alcohol. From this point until Prohibition's end, there are no reliable figures regarding alcohol consumption in the US, however some sources suggest that consumption fell to thirty percent of its pre-prohibition levels in the first few years, but then grew to sixty or seventy percent by prohibition's end.

High spirits in the 70s and 80s

Total consumption then grew again in the 1930s and 40s, reaching 8.7 liters per person in 1946, before it plateaued at around 7.6 liters per person per year in the 1950s. Alcohol consumption then increased gradually to more than ten liters per person per year in the 1970s and 1980s, which was the highest rate of alcohol consumption in recorded US history. It then dropped to just over eight liters in the late 1990s, and gradually increased again to 8.9 liters per person in 2013, which is similar to figures recorded more than 160 years previously.

Beer moves a-head

The late 1800s also saw a major shift in the type of alcohol consumed. In 1850, 7.1 out of the eight liters consumed was through spirits, while beer and wine made up 0.5 and 0.3 liters respectively. However, by the turn of the twentieth century, alcohol was most commonly consumed through beer, and excluding a brief increase in spirits consumption in the 1960s, beer has been the most common source of alcohol since 1900. Alcohol from wine consumption has also gradually increased throughout US history, reaching its highest point in 2013, where the average US citizen consumed 1.6 liters of alcohol per year by drinking wine.

In 2022, the total alcohol consumption in California was around 94 million gallons of ethanol (pure alcohol). The Health People program initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established a nationwide objective of no more than 2.1 gallons of alcohol per capita. This statistic shows the alcohol consumption of all beverages in the United States in 2022, by state.

This statistic lists the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the highest annual per capita consumption of alcohol in 2016. That year, Uruguay had the highest alcohol consumption among its population aged 15 years and older with more than ten liters of pure alcohol consumed per capita yearly.To find out more about the Latin American and Caribbean countries with the lowest per capita consumption of alcohol in 2016, click here. For a more comprehensive list of the alcohol consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2016, click here.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, alcohol sales in the United States had been rising for years. 2020 was a sharp reversal of this trend. In 2022, sales of alcoholic beverages finally reached and surpassed pre-pandemic levels at 259.8 billion U.S. dollars.

Where is the growth coming from?

If we look at the different segments within the alcoholic beverage industry, we see that beer has been losing market share to spirits and to a lesser extent wine. Since 2010, spirits have gathered an additional nine percent of the alcohol market while beer has lost nearly the same amount over that time. The rise in total alcohol sales might then be explained by this shift towards spirits, where in 2022 “all categories saw positive growth.

In 2023, it was estimated that nearly 61 percent of those aged 26 to 29 years in the United States were current alcohol drinkers, the highest rate of all age groups. Those aged 26 to 29 also had the highest rates of binge alcohol use. Although the legal age to consume alcohol in the United States is 21, around 31.1 percent of those aged 18 to 20 years were already current alcohol users. Binge drinking in the United States Binge drinking is commonly defined as consuming five or more alcoholic drinks on one occasion for men and four or more drinks for women. Binge drinking is most common among adults in their 20s, and more common among Hispanics and Whites than other races or ethnicities. The states with the highest prevalence of binge drinking are North Dakota, Montana, and Iowa, while Alabama has the lowest prevalence of binge drinking of all U.S. states. In 2022, almost 22 percent of the population of North Dakota binge drank in the past 30 days, with the overall prevalence rate in the United States around 17 percent at that time. High school alcohol use Although alcohol use among teens remains a problem, the annual prevalence of alcohol use among those in grades 8, 10, and 12 has decreased dramatically over the past two decades. In 2023, it was estimated that a combined total of 30 percent of those in grades 8, 10, and 12 had used alcohol in the past year. In comparison, the annual prevalence rate of alcohol use among these grades was just over 67 percent in the year 1991. The 30-day prevalence of alcohol use for these grades has also decreased significantly. In 1991, around 40 percent of those in grades 8, 10, and 12 used alcohol in the past month, while in 2023 this rate dropped to just 14.3 percent.

In 2020, Alexandrion Gr. Romania was the most important company in the production of alcoholic beverages in Romania, with a consolidated EBITDA worth nearly one billion Romanian lei. Alexandrion Group has two production units in Romania, in Ploiești and Rădăuți, and it is also active on the international market. Some of the company’s most famous products are: Kreskova, Alexandrion and Cava d’Oro.

Market revenue

The Romanian spirits market revenue constantly increased over the last years, peaking at 769 million U.S. dollars in 2020. The most valuable spirits segment was brandy, while rum and gin generated the least revenue. The overall increase in market revenue inevitably led to a growth in the revenue per capita. In this regard, the brandy segment produced a revenue of 13.4 U.S. dollars in 2020 and was expected to amount to nearly 27 U.S. dollars by 2025.

Alcohol consumption

In 2021, the average alcohol consumption per capita in Romania totaled 10.38 liters of pure alcohol, with a forecast to increase to 10.59 liters by 2025. According to a study conducted by Reveal Marketing Research in 2019, beer remained the most favorite alcoholic beverage in the country, while spirits were preferred by only 5.8 percent of respondents. In the same year, the average annual spirits consumption per capita amounted to 4.8 liters.

In 2024, bottled water accounted for roughly ** percent of beverage consumption in the United States, making it the most consumed type of beverage that year. Value-added water and vegetable juice were among the least favorite beverages that year. Bottled water consumption worldwide The average American consumer drinks roughly ** gallons of bottled water. In countries, such as Mexico, it is very common to drink bottled water, as tap water is often considered unsafe for consumption. It accounted for over ** gallons of bottled water consumption per capita. Cider in the U.S. and Europe Cider is a low-alcoholic beverage, typically made from the fermented juice of apples or pears. While the drink is regularly consumed in the United States, it is most commonly drunk in Western Europe. 48 percent of Western Europeans consumed cider, while about ** percent of North Americans drank it. The United States imported most of its cider from countries, such as France, Ireland, and Sweden.

People in Portugal consume more wine than any other country worldwide, according to a study of 2022. In that year, the European country reached an annual per capita consumption of nearly ** liters. Following in the list was France, with wine lovers consuming around ** liters of wine on average that year. Global wine production In addition to having the third highest per capita wine consumption, France produces more wine than any other country in the world. In 2023, the production volume of French wine amounted to ** million hectoliters. In comparison, the largest non-European wine producer, the United States, occupied the fourth position that year with less than half of that figure. Wine consumption in the United States In terms of total consumption, the United States consumes more wine than any other country, at **** million hectoliters in 2023. Barefoot and Josh Cellars were the leading table wine brands in the country in that year.

The real per capita consumer spending on alcohol and tobacco in the United Arab Emirates was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 11.3 U.S. dollars (+4.27 percent). According to this forecast, in 2029, the real per capita consumer spending will have increased for the fourth consecutive year to 275.71 U.S. dollars. Consumer spending, in this case alcohol- and tobacco-related spending per capita, refers to the domestic demand of private households and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs). Spending by corporations and the state is not included. The forecast has been adjusted for the expected impact of COVID-19.Consumer spending is the biggest component of the gross domestic product as computed on an expenditure basis in the context of national accounts. The other components in this approach are consumption expenditure of the state, gross domestic investment as well as the net exports of goods and services. Consumer spending is broken down according to the United Nations' Classification of Individual Consumption By Purpose (COICOP). The shown data adheres broadly to group 02. As not all countries and regions report data in a harmonized way, all data shown here has been processed by Statista to allow the greatest level of comparability possible. The underlying input data are usually household budget surveys conducted by government agencies that track spending of selected households over a given period.The data has been converted from local currencies to US$ using the average constant exchange rate of the base year 2017. The timelines therefore do not incorporate currency effects. The data is shown in real terms which means that monetary data is valued at constant prices of a given base year (in this case: 2017). To attain constant prices the nominal forecast has been deflated with the projected consumer price index for the respective category.Find more key insights for the real per capita consumer spending on alcohol and tobacco in countries like Iran and Jordan.

Once described by US President Herbert Hoover as "a great social and economic experiment", we now know that Prohibition was ultimately a failure, that led to increased crime and violence and gave way to a new era of mafia and mob influence in the United States. On January 17, 1920, the Volstead Act came into effect and the manufacturing, transportation, importation and sale of alcohol became federally prohibited across the United States, and while consumption was not a federal offence, it was sometimes prohibited on a state level. Opposition to Prohibition remained strong throughout the 1920s, and the Great Depression (starting in 1929) led many to advocate for the sale and taxation of alcoholic beverages in order to ease the US' economic woes. One of the reasons why Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1932 was due to his promise of ending Prohibition, which he did with the Ratification of the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933.

Impact on homicide rate

In the two decades before Prohibition, the recorded homicide rate in the United States was growing gradually, although often fluctuating in the 1910s. When Prohibition came into effect, the homicide rate continued on it's previous trajectory, but without fluctuating. While homicides related to alcohol consumption may have declined, some historians speculate that the total number could have continued to rise due to the increase in criminal activity associated with the illegal alcohol trade. The homicide rate in the US reached it's highest figure in the final year of Prohibition, with 9.7 homicides per 100,000 people in 1933, before falling to roughly half of this rate over the next ten years (this decrease in the early 1940s was also facilitated by the draft for the Second World War).

Impact on suicide rate

Alcohol's contribution to suicide rates has been significant throughout history, however it is only through more recent studies that society is beginning to form a clearer picture of what the relationship between the two actually is. In the first half of the twentieth century, there was no record of alcohol's role in individual suicide cases, however there was a noticeable change in the US' suicide rate during the 1920s. Prior to Prohibition, the suicide rate had already fallen from over 16 deaths per 100,000 people in 1915 to 11.5 in 1919, however this decline has been attributed to the role played by the First World War, which saw millions enlist and contribute to the war effort (a similar decrease can be observed in the lead up to the Second World War). After an initial spike in 1921, the suicide rate in the US then increases gradually throughout the 1920s, spiking again following the Great Depression in 1929. It is unclear whether the reduction in the US suicide rate in the 1910s and 1920s can be attributed to Prohibition, or whether it should be attributed to a variety of socio-economic factors, however the changing figures does suggest some correlation when compared with other decades.