
Alcohol Belts of Europe - pionerkotik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_belts_of_Europe
======
aries1980
I disagree with Hungary is in a Wine-Beer belt. Although Beer is in par with
wine, the spirits (pálinka) is very significant. In the region I born, in
every household that had some fruits had the argument whether jam or spirits
should be made from the fruit. :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1linka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1linka)
[https://welovebudapest.com/en/2015/02/20/19-signs-you-
learne...](https://welovebudapest.com/en/2015/02/20/19-signs-you-learned-to-
drink-in-hungary/)

~~~
babuskov
Serbia is also not in Wine belt. The traditional drink is rakija - which is
the same as pálinka in Hungary:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakia)

The "belts" seems like made up thing, bending the actual facts to fit
someone's story.

~~~
josteink
> The "belts" seems like made up thing, bending the actual facts to fit
> someone's story.

Agreed. As a Norwegian, I can attest Norway is known for its appreciation of
fine spirits like scotch and cognac.

That said, we’re clearly a beer-country. We make beer, we drink beer, we go
out for a beer, and when people come over, we ask if they want a beer.

Vodka is only drunk by a smaller niche or Eastern European immigrants.

How we could ever be a “vodka nation” beats me. This looks like fiction.

Edit: I guess the illegal “moonshine” culture in the northern parts of the
country could account for “vodkaism”, but that’s not really a striving culture
these days, and definitely not mainstream.

~~~
iguy
"these days" is key. I think the map is trying to say that maybe 200 years
ago, people mostly drank hard alcohol of some sort, not beer or wine. Do you
know whether that is accurate?

And they've lumped by country borders, too. Could people grow hops in very
southern Norway, perhaps?

~~~
supermatt
They provide no sources for historical consumption. It looks fictional to me.
I know there is a lot of fruit wines traditionally in lithuania, for example,
but we have been lumped into the "vodka belt"...

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aledalgrande
I don't know if it's because of the wine belt or the warmer climate, but there
is definitely a difference in drinking styles between Northern and Southern
Europe.

While living in the Northern countries, I've seen an emphasis on the alcohol
content and getting as drunk as you can, just for the goal of getting drunk.
In Southern countries instead, there is more of an appreciation of what are
you actually drinking, its taste and history. People still get very drink, but
it's a more mellow experience, as they enjoy this dionysian rite.

Did anybody else have the same experience?

~~~
exlurker
Yes, generally speaking, the northern countries have had very strict
restrictions on alcohol, which somehow developed an unhealthy attitude in
that, once your job is over on friday, get as drunk as fast as possible,
preferably until sunday.

But it's changing - now there's an appreciation of the taste of good wines,
craft beers and liquors during the week, although still going hardcore during
the weekend.

I don't know if it's for the better, but it's changing.

~~~
benbristow
With craft beers it's usually still at the weekend and still mostly with the
intention of getting the same level of drunk.

It just tastes better/different

------
alangibson
This makes the common mistake of taking country as the unit of analysis. Like
just about everywhere on Earth, European countries are too regional to
generalize. In Southern Austria, it's beer and schnapps, with a healthy dose
of either white or red wine depending on what's best grown locally.

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ratmice
A bit weird, the article refers to "traditional beverages of countries rather
than what is most commonly drunk by the populace today", but then uses images
compiled from modern consumption data. "consumption (in litres of pure
alcohol) in 2010".

Traditional consumption largely follows from soil, and weather, affecting what
grows. A less generalized article would be cool, showing cider regions in
Germany, France and England as well as wine regions in Germany.

I don't think the generalization to whole countries suits the purported goal
of traditional beverages well, nor does the classification of cider as a wine
analogue.

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xanipher
Many countries even have their own internal alcohol belts. Austria has many
wine growing regions where Wine dominates alcohol consumption.

~~~
EForEndeavour
Austria's vineyards are concentrated in the eastern portion of the country,
right?
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_wine#Wine_regions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_wine#Wine_regions))
That's wine production; is wine consumption also predominantly in the east, or
do Austrians drink wine no matter where in the country they live?

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martythemaniak
Here is a light-hearted look at all the European belts, including the alcohol
one.

[https://atlasofprejudice.com/tearing-europe-
apart-10d01e876e...](https://atlasofprejudice.com/tearing-europe-
apart-10d01e876eab)

~~~
supermatt
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the source for the "historic" map, which
to my eyes is entirely fictional and full of prejudice. In Lithuania, we
historically have a culture of fruit (and berry) wines, but have been lumped
into the "vodka belt".

~~~
mantas
And beer has historical presence too. Vodka wasn't a big thing till 19th
century when Russian empire came.

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nabla9
As said in the article, these are traditional belts.

Nordic countries would be in the beer belt today, for example.

~~~
Gwypaas
Literally the next image shows that Nordic is not beer-belt today (well 2010)
but instead split with Finland and Denmark being beer while Sweden and Norway
is wine.

I wonder if there's any research as to why that is.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alcohol_belts_of_Europe...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alcohol_belts_of_Europe_\(actual_consumption_in_2010\).svg)

~~~
freyr
> _Finland and Denmark being beer while Sweden and Norway is wine_

Finland and Norway are beer, Sweden and Denmark are wine.

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GuB-42
I have a feeling that beer is overtaking every other alcoholic beverage in
popularity everywhere.

I live in southeastern France. Definitely wine country, lots of reasonably
priced, good quality wine is produced here. And while wine is still very
popular, a lot of younger people now drink beer. For taste, we have a lot of
craft beer shops popping off. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, high
alcohol beer is replacing red wine as a cheap way of getting drunk. It is a
trend I trend to see everywhere I go.

Interestingly, in France, it looks like rosé wine is making a comeback with
women.

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michalu
It's not clear what was the method to measure this. The article mentions
"preferred alcohol," "drinking," "drinking pattern" and "production."

This can be misleading as many comments state below. For example, Romania is a
big wine producer, it's most known for wine, but a lot of that wine goes for
export.

For drinking, a one liter of vodka equals four liters of wine in terms of
alcohol content. So a country that drinks 1.5x more wine in quantity over
vodka isn't necessarily getting drunk on wine, because you may order a couple
glasses of 2dl wine but hit 6 vodka shots of 0.5dl each so basically your main
drink of the night was spirit even though quantity-wise you consumed more
wine.

Often times, in central eastern Europe, you order beer which is half a liter
but you get several shots with it.

For preferred alcohol, it's kind of like when you ask people if they prefer
theatre to cinema, most will answer theatre even though they'll only go to
cinema.

Or ask them if they prefer to read Economist or Buzzfeed. Nobody ever answers
Buzzfeed, yet it is one of the most read media in the world.

So ask me if I prefer beer or wine, I'll say wine because I do. But when I go
out I'll have a beer because it's cheaper allows me to sit in the pub much
longer without getting drunk too fast and everyone else drinks it too.

This is hard to measure. But overall for main countries like Spain, UK,
Germany, France, Italy, Russia etc. it's seems to be correct.

The correct way to measure this, in my opinion would be to measure which
beverage delivers the most alcohol content for the said population for that
will be its preferred alcoholic beverage.

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odiroot
I'm a bit sad our vodka culture in Poland is dying. A lot of people just
replace it with drinking beer, usually cheap and terrible.

That doesn't necessary mean that heavy drinkers suddenly drink less alcohol
(as some vodka-opponents would claim). They just drink longer/faster to ingest
the same amount of pure alcohol in the night.

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flurdy
My take on this map is perhaps easier to judge by what is acceptable and
common to have at lunch when at work or with family.

Would a glass of wine at lunch seem odd?

Would a beer with your lunchtime burger seem out of place?

Would a glass or two of vodka between colleagues be quite normal?

In that case, I suspect some countries would be more "prude belt"...

------
TrackerFF
Norwegian here:

Even though we have a long history of moonshine, especially in the rural
areas, we are most def. a beer-drinking country.

If anything, our taste of alcohol is more diverse than ever before, simply
because there are more options.

When I grew up, people either drank beer or moonshine, because that's the only
things we had available in my small village. Then the (state owned) alcohol
store arrived, and moonshine completely disappeared.

I remember the first time I visited Russia, in the 90s, and was set back by
the sheer amount of Vodka the Russians drank. Went to a party, and couldn't
find a single beer. They were all drinking straight vodka. But IIRC, they've
now been "westernized" on that front, and drink much more beer.

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bpye
The article points out that Scotland actually falls into the spirit-drinking
countries - typically whisky. Unsurprisingly this is almost entirely related
to the climate of the countries and the crops that could traditionally be
grown.

~~~
mckee1
I'm not sure this is really reflected in reality, perhaps aside from the 65+
generation. I grew up in Scotland, and it was very much a beer drinking
culture.

~~~
mustacheemperor
This is addressed in the beginning of the article,

>The alcohol belts refer to the traditional beverages of countries rather than
what is most commonly drunk by the populace today, as in terms of drinking
habits beer has become the most popular alcoholic drink in the whole world,
including various parts of the wine and vodka belts.

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fian
This made me wonder what alcoholic beverages the vodka belt countries drank
before the arrival of the potato from South America in the late 1500's.

Seems it was mostly beer and mead:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2e1rav/what_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2e1rav/what_did_russians_drink_before_the_introduction/)

Interesting that the introduction of a single plant could have such an impact
on cultural norms.

~~~
qubex
This is exactly the question that came to my mind (and that comes to my mind
whenever I hear ‘potatoes’, ‘tomatoes’, or other New World imports mentioned
as ‘tradition’ of some European country).

For example: I come from Italy. The number of times I’ve heard/read stuff
about the supposed benefits of the “Mediterranean diet” being “recognised as
far back as the Ancient Romans” and featuring some photograph of a platter
involving fish and tomatoes... it just makes me want to flip.

When I saw sliced tomatoes on the table in the film _The Gladiator_ it made me
want to walk out of the cinema.

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hackbinary
Well, whoever wrote this doesn't know about whisky in Scotland. :D

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opportune
One of the things I have noticed among immigrants from Eastern Europe is that
very few of them drink much, if at all. It seems to be some kind of class
thing. So it’s not surprising that in some of the wealthier Eastern European
countries spirits are losing favor to beer

~~~
groundlogic
Really? I've never been as hung over as the day after I was drinking vodka
with my polish counterpart software developers. Granted, they were still
living in Poland, so not really immigrants, but they were probably amongst the
5-10% highest paid people in the country.

(Swede here.)

~~~
Tade0
I can tell from experience that this may be due to them graduating from a
technical university in Poland.

Young men[0] around here still bond via drinking lethal amounts of vodka. I
know of at least one death caused by this.

[0] The gender imbalance in CS is so severe that I remember bragging to my
friends how I was not only acquainted with _both_ of the female students in
our year at the Warsaw University of Technology, but also _both_ of the ones
that started studying CS in 2010 at the University of Warsaw.

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deltron3030
Beer is more common in Spain among the youth imo (own subjective experience),
what's different to Germany is that young people pass litros (1l bottles)
around like joints. Lips don't don't touch the bottle when you drink..

~~~
harperlee
1 liter beer bottles are more typically (informally) called litronas ;)

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jasoneckert
After searching for "Alcohol Belts of North America" unsuccessfully, I'm
wondering if there really isn't a trend in North America (perhaps a bit of
everything, everywhere?).

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nabdab
The only country which for some reason got classified in two belts also
happens to be one of the happiest countries in the world, Denmark.

~~~
ajuc
Poland is in beer and vodka belts?

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tus88
The two images at the top are quite dissimilar with no clear explanation why.
Different years?

~~~
scotty79
First map is aspirational. Second is actual.

~~~
Tade0
I don't think many people in Poland nowadays - aside maybe from college
students - aspire to be called "vodka country".

My family hails from Lesser Poland and I've never seen vodka on any of the
family gatherings - including weddings.

It just doesn't appear to be part of the local culture.

Of course the situation is very different in the eastern and north-eastern
regions.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Peculiar. I was born and still live in Lesser Poland, and throughout all my
circles, beer and vodka are two staple alcoholic beverages. Especially when we
talk weddings - vodka is _the_ one mandatory drink at a wedding. Everything
else is optional, but there has to be wedding vodka, and besides providing an
ample supply during the event, it's customary for the newlyweds to give a
bottle to each guest couple as a parting gift.

~~~
Tade0
Guess I extrapolated too much after all.

But then again both of my parents (almost) never drank vodka and they have
wildly different backgrounds.

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ginko
As far as I know the most consumed alcohol in Spain is beer.

~~~
AdrianB1
Is it because one can have a cold beer as a hydration and cooling vehicle,
while wine cannot fill that role?

~~~
Mediterraneo10
There is a tradition in Spain of cooling wine beverages in the warm months of
the year: sangria where wine is mixed with fruit juice, and more recently
calimocho where it is mixed with Coca-Cola.

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ur-whale
Is there some sort of point to this classification ?

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aj7
Vodka is the aunt of wine.

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lifeisstillgood
Reminds me of the Chumbawumba song "EU has a whiskey belt, EU has a vodka
belt, EU has a wine belt"

EU never gonna keep me down?

