[rkk3]

9 Gallon is 34 Liters, 11 drinks per Liter of Vokda/Liquor

9*11 = 374 drinks per year or 1 drink a day

Its probably that Average/mean drinking amount isn't a good statistical representation when almost all the consumption is done by the top 10% of drinkers.

Historical comparisons also are tricky because sizes and %'s aren't consistent to today. Beer/Cider weren't as strong and bottle's of wine were smaller than 750ml etc etc.

[ska]

Okrent had it calculated at equivalent to 7 US gallons of pure ethanol/yr (1830s) to normalize this.

So approx 17.5 gallons at today's standard of 40%. Which is about 2250 standard (1.5oz) drinks a year, or average of 6/day.

There are higher and lower estimates too, but anyway you work the calculations, it's a lot.

[thebean11]

Where are you getting 11 drinks per liter of vodka? I'm getting twice that (1.5oz shots)

[rkk3]

You're right, looks like I grabbed that too quickly. They were citing for standard drinks/pours.

[beckingz]

The joke being that "2 shots of vodka" is more like 4-5.