U.S. Alcoholic Drinks Lost Potency in Second Half of 20th Century

Newswise — Instead of a shot of father's whiskey and glass of port after dinner, Americans are choosing Cosmopolitans, coconut rum and light beers as their drinks of choice, and the result has been a decline in the average alcohol content of the beer, wine and liquor sold in the United States over the past half-century.

The average alcohol content of liquor dropped five percentage points between the early 1950s and 1997. The percentage of alcohol in both wine and beer also fell between the early 1950s and early 1990s before rebounding slightly, although not to the level of 1950s drinks.

New estimates suggest 1950s beer contained more alcohol, and wine and liquor in the 1980s and 1990s contained less alcohol, than has been suggested previously in government studies, say William Kerr, Ph.D. and colleagues at the Alcohol Research Group.

These estimates suggest there may have been "roughly similar levels of alcohol intake during the 1950s and 1990s," Kerr and colleagues say.

The study appears in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

The average alcohol content of wine sold in the United States fell from 16.75 percent in 1950 to 10.49 percent in 1991 before rebounding slightly to 11.45 in 2002. The alcohol content in beer followed a similar pattern, falling from 5.02 percent in 1950 to 4.58 percent in 1993 and rising again to 4.65 percent in 2002, the researchers found.

Compared to government figures, "our estimates indicate that consumption of alcohol from beer was somewhat higher for every year and that consumption of alcohol from wine and spirits was lower in most years," Kerr says.

The average alcohol content of liquor varied significantly from year to year and state to state, due in part to changes in the popularity of specific types of liquor.

In 2002, for example, the District of Columbia had the highest average alcohol content of liquor sold, at 38.3 percent. Ohio had the lowest average alcohol content, at 34.8 percent. In both states, the 2002 alcohol levels were about 4 percent to 5 percent lower than 1950 levels.

If alcohol consumption were evenly distributed across all Americans ages 15 and older, each person would have consumed an average of 2.175 gallons of pure alcohol in 2002, the researchers calculate. Among likely drinkers in this age group, this number is equivalent to 600 drinks a year.

The new estimates of percent alcohol concentration in the drinks sold in the United States will help researchers pinpoint the exact relationships between alcohol consumed and alcohol-related death and disease, and may offer new insights into controlling alcohol-related problems such as drunk driving.

But the study also offers a glimpse at shifting preferences of American drinkers during the last half of the 20th century. The decline in percent alcohol content "reflects a variety of factors that greatly transformed each of the alcoholic beverage markets over this period," Kerr said.

In 1950, for example, 80 percent of liquor sold could be categorized as "whiskey." Vodka, gin, rum, tequila and premixed cocktails — often in flavored versions that have lower percentage alcohol content — have steadily encroached on whiskey's popularity since then, the researchers say.

In 2002, beer was the most popular drink, making up nearly 60 percent of the total alcohol consumed.

Laurie Lieber, M.P.H., of the Marin Institute, a group that describes itself as an alcohol industry watchdog, said beer's popularity may be due in part to "consumer and cultural misperception that beer is the 'beverage of moderation,' a vestige of post-Prohibition policymaking that may make consumers less worried about consuming six beers than they would be about drinking six vodka tonics."

Beer is taxed at a much lower rate than liquor, Lieber said. "So the relative concentration of alcohol in the beverage being consumed may be a less important variable in consumer choices than the relative price of the overall buzz — especially to price-sensitive younger drinkers."

The study was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research: Contact Mary Newcomb at (317) 375-0819 or [email protected], or visit http://www.alcoholism-cer.com Kerr WC, Greenfield TK, Tujague J. Estimates of the mean alcohol concentration of the spirits, wine and beer sold in the US and per capita consumption: 1950 to 2002. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 30(9), 2006.