WHO data shows that Australians are definitely not the biggest drinkers when compared to global consumption across beer, wine and spirits.
Using data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ghost in the Data released an interactive web page that shows the average weekly consumption for (virtually) every country around the world.
The booze map dispels some myths about the nature of drinking in different cultures, including showing figures across the three styles are mixed but moderate down under.
Sampling data from the 16 biggest guzzling countries, Australia ranked #6 in beer consumption, #3 in wine, and #13 in drinking spirits.
Overall, that ranked Australian consumption in the middle of the spectrum: #7 of 16.
Some notable outliers were:
- Namibia shows the highest beer consumption (2530mL), beating out the Czech Republic (2429mL) for second, yet only 4mL of wine and 3mL of spirits – by far the lowest in these styles
- France: it is no surprise they are the biggest wine consumers (1067mL), but actually slurp 56 per cent more than the second-biggest wine drinker, Italy (684mL)
- Russia: similarly not too big a surprise as the biggest consumers of spirits (282mL), but frighteningly a similar figure of 50 per cent above its nearest competitor, Poland (187mL)