Ah, Consumer Behavior. Forbes took a look at the CDC’s 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey (BRFSS) and ranked 33 cities based on their resident’s answers to three survey questions:
whether they had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days; whether men had more than two drinks per day or women one drink per day; and whether they had five or more drinks on one occasion. In each case, higher-ranking cities reported larger percentages of their population answering in the affirmative.
Of course, as Forbes notes, a better “hard drinkin’” rank doesn’t mean your city is a “den of debauchery,” and “just downing a few cold ones doesn’t make a person irresponsible.” Well, like, duh…
Forbes’ 15 Hardest Drinking Cities
- 1. Austin, TX
- 2. Milwaukee, WI
- 3. San Francisco, CA
- 4. Providence, R.I.
- 5. Chicago, IL
- 8. (tie) Seattle, WA, Cleveland, OH, St. Louis, MO
- 9. Boston, MA
- 10. Cincinnati, OH
- 11. Pittsburgh,PA
- 12. Virginia Beach, VA
- 13. Portland, OR
- 14. Jacksonville, FL
- 15. Detroit, MI
America’s Hard-Drinking Cities [Forbes]
(Photo: Paxton Holley )
More From Consumerist
-
House Flipping Is Cool Again, Say Reality TV Producers With Very Short-Term Memories
-
AMA Says Money From Soda Taxes Should Be Used To Fight Obesity
-
Could Charging More For Boozy Beverages Curb The Amount Of Deaths Related To Drinking?
-
Verizon Wireless Waiving Domestic Text & Voice Charges For Sandy Victims
-
Congratulations, Chicago: Your City Now Has The Most Expensive Parking Meters In The U.S.
Booya! I live between #4 and #9. Let the party begin!
Lies.
New Orleans is number 1, and proud of it.
No matter WHAT is in that pan on the stove (illustration above) , it probably tastes better than Schlitz…
WE’RE NUMBER 2! WE’RE NUMBER 2!
We’re number 1! We’re number 1! And I grew up in Number 12! Woot!
This has been reported ad nauseum in the Austin media – and every channel has thoughtfully provided accompanying stories re: the evils of college kids’ binge drinking at 6th Street bars. I have lived in Austin 9 years and been there (6th st) only once – which was more than enough.
How the hell did New York and Vegas miss the list?
@shoelace414: I shoulda used all caps, too!
@Wormfather is Wormfather: @Uptowngirl: I think they surveyed residents and discounted the travelers/tourists. My opinion only…
@Wormfather is Wormfather: Zimas and wine spritzers don’t count.
Of course us Clevelanders drink ourselves silly, our economy sucks and it snows 7 months out of the year. What else are we gonna do? LOL
Born and raised in Pittsburgh. Spent several years in Virginia Beach. Now back in Pittsburgh. Hic.
How can Michigan only be #15? We live in Michigan for god sakes, that alone should be our motivation to slosh it up to first place.
I’m not mad, Michigan…just disappointed.
All of those places seem to be places where being drunk would lessen the pain of being there.
@Triborough: I beg to differ, Seattle is a damn good place to live…
Detroit would be ranked higher if more people here could afford to drink. Damn recession is killing everybody’s buzz.
And in San Francisco our alcohol is organic and locally brewed. I guess we would be loco-alkies.
No Madison, Wisconsin?
I think they need to run the survey again. I drank so much this past weekend that Atlanta should be in the top 5 now.
Boston is 9th???
Must drink more.
I’m more than a little surprised not to see Washington D.C. in the top 15.
Hmmmmm. Not sure that I like their methodology. It might have helped to include some information on alcohol sales in the areas.
glad to see Portland made the list. Thanks to all those strip clubs probably
Look! Cleveland finally beat Pittsburgh at something!
@Wormfather is Wormfather: I’m surprised by NYC and Vegas not being on the list either, but eh…. My old hometown, coming in at 4th = happy medium
I grew up in three of those cities (#3, 5, and 8) and live in one of them now (#3). I go on vacation near one every year (#2) and will be stopping over in #1 during my vacation in a couple of weeks.
w00t!
@humphrmi: Whoops, I live in #5, not #3 now.
Last year Minneapolis was #2. Now we aren’t even in the top 15? How the mighty have fallen…
How is DC not on this list? I grew up in #4 and I can assure you it can’t hold a candle to DC, where I live now.
Chicago beats SF fo’ shizzle.
I’d drink if I had to live in Houston, TX. I wonder why it never made the list?
Ah America, where the quantity of alcohol consumption is a source of pride.
Ok, seriously, really? No New Orleans? The land of the Go Cup? No open container laws and drive-through daquiri shops? I am offended. This city finds any excuse it can to celebrate, and celebrate it does.
I am saddened. I need a drink to mourn our tragic loss.
We got beat by Providence? WTF?
@EllaMcWho:
I’m including the residents. I haven’t seen a town drink as hard as New Orleanians. I even talked with a mixologist from London who said Bombay Sapphire recognized New Orleans as the hardest drinking city in North America, and was on par with Western Europe.
@Wormfather is Wormfather: Seriously. Our bars are open to 4AM. Austin closes at like 1:30.
I’m shocked Philadelphia didn’t make the list. There’s a bar on every street corner it seems.
(I live in Jax, #14. Go us!)
Thanks for the list of the –17– most hardest drinking cities.
these questions are too confusing – especially for your above-average imbiber. for example, more than 2 drinks/day? is that calendar day or 24-hr period? some would consider four drinks before midnite & four after as one day while others would consider it two. 5 drinks/occasion? what exactly is an “occasion”? i mean, is a week-long bender one occasion? if i start with a few hair of the dog rounds as part of my morning routine, but take a break for lunch & then get back to business, is that the same occasion or is that 2 separate occasions?
@Uptowngirl: Agreed. There is something seriously wrong with this survey’s methodology if New Orleans isn’t first on the list.
Austin and S.F. in the top 3; I guess hippies don’t have any hang ups about alcohol.
well, they obviously didn’t stop by madison wisconsin, where about 1/5th of the population is between 18 and 24 and survives the weekends by downing as many glass boots full of spaten optimator and as many of wando’s fishbowls full of god knows what as they can. ha, i heard someone from boston recently bragging about drinking 40 shots of beer in 40 minutes. puhlease, if you haven’t joined the century club (100 in 100) you’re not a drinker. i won’t even mention the 5 beers in 5 minutes challenge, though i guess i just did. (all hail kanderson for doing all five in less than 90 seconds!)
@Henrythoreau:
Yeah, I’m surprised Madison isn’t on there, too. A lot of “college towns” I expected are absent. Oh well! Time to heat it up and have a cold one or twelve!
Rant: Boston is up there on the list, thanks to the swarms of retarded out-of-state college kids who stumble their way into our town and trash it as best they can before going home.
Well, I was born in #4 and live in the subs of #9. Woohoo!
@Snarkysnake: oh now that’s just crazy talk. Schlitz tall boys in Providence for life.
Drunks in Boston? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why if ever there was a teetotaling city it would be Boston.
Ending the sarcasm here, I’m not surprised. Massachusetts in general seems to be a bit of a drinking state. If you don’t drink you are pretty much stigmatized and ostracized from social settings around here.
I’m a non-drinking Republican Yankee fan in Massachusetts. It’s a wonder I’m not dead yet.
@redhelix: Don’t you mean rehtahded?
It doesn’t surprise me that Austin is #1 on the list. 6th street in downtown Austin is nothing but bar after bar after bar. There’s probably 20 bars inside a 100 yard stretch of the street on both sides. On the weekends they close off 6th street to traffic at night (cross streets remain open) so none of the drunks get hit by motorists. I don’t think Austin has ever heard of a dry precinct.
Finally something about Da Nati I can be proud of! Bring on the cornhole!
Where is the love for Dallas? Those people drink like freaking fish. And I’m not talking about college students, which I think skews any city’s results. I think this survey should have been limited to the over-25 employed mortgage-holding crowd to really be accurate.
@eekfuh: I was thinking the same.
Oh lucky #13! Sweet.
It’d be worth seeing the breakdown of which alcohols are consumed in these cities. SF is #3 because of the enormous amount of wine consumed there – SF has some great local beers and its share of residents who drink them but if you look at the questions asked, it would tend to favor cities with lots of wine consumption.
Portland and Seattle are likely more mixed between wine and beer, whereas Austin seemed like a beer town to me when I was there last month.