A contributing factor to the previous whiskey glut and following boom?

[flahute]

I came across this article in the Atlantic and got sucked in due to the intentionally foreboding title. "America Has A Drinking Problem." Well played Atlantic.

It's very interesting and spends most of the time looking at alcohol consumption throughout history leading up to today. The author makes the point that America in particular seems to oscillate between being all in followed by periods of temperance (Prohibition being the most severe of course.) 

The quoted passage below particularly caught my eye because the timing lines up almost perfectly with what we refer to around here as 'the glut' which was followed by 'the boom'.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america-drinking-alone-problem/619017/

 

"After Prohibition’s repeal, the alcohol industry refrained from aggressive marketing, especially of liquor. Nonetheless, drinking steadily ticked back up, hitting pre-Prohibition levels in the early ’70s, then surging past them. Around that time, most states lowered their drinking age from 21 to 18 (to follow the change in voting age)—just as the Baby Boomers, the biggest generation to date, were hitting their prime drinking years. For an illustration of what followed, I direct you to the film Dazed and Confused.

 

Drinking peaked in 1981, at which point—true to form—the country took a long look at the empty beer cans littering the lawn, and collectively recoiled. What followed has been described as an age of neo-temperance. Taxes on alcohol increased; warning labels were added to containers. The drinking age went back up to 21, and penalties for drunk driving finally got serious. Awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome rose too—prompting a quintessentially American freak-out: Unlike in Europe, where pregnant women were reassured that light drinking remained safe, those in the U.S. were, and are, essentially warned that a drop of wine could ruin a baby’s life. By the late 1990s, the volume of alcohol consumed annually had declined by a fifth.

And then began the current lurch upward. Around the turn of the millennium, Americans said To hell with it and poured a second drink, and in almost every year since, we’ve drunk a bit more wine and a bit more liquor than the year before."

[0895]

Great article.  Thanks for posting it.

[dwg13013]

I highly doubt prohibition could be described as a time of temperance. 

Just wasn't legal booze, but it was flowing freely. 

[steven s]

great read, thx!

[River Hills]

Very interesting.  Thanks for posting.

[Harry in WashDC]

THX.   Just finished reading it.  I feel better about my consumption levels already.

 

I just ordered Edward Slingerland's "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization" which is mentioned in the article.  Its reviews emphasize that it is a pretty good survey of the literature on the history of drinking.  I expect it to be closer to Tom Standage's "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" and Amy Stewart's "The Drunken Botanist" than to the Encyclopedia Brittannica.  Shorter. too, and more entertaining, but learning is learning.

 

UGH!  Anybody else wasting a nice, hot afternoon watching the Nats get pummeled by the Phillies?  Almost enough to get me drinking early.  Talk about a "contributing factor"!!

[Kepler]

Very interesting read, thanks for posting it @flahute

 

[Old Hippie]

I think consumption will level off but remain high barring some unforeseen phenomenon.  I remember when people got off white zinfandel and figured out how to use a cork screw thanks to Kendal Jackson back in the 90's. They started drinking more and drinking better. They started looking for unicorns that were rated 94 in the wine spectator. While the growth finally leveled off, sales remained high. The bottom line is peoples palates matured. It seems to me the same thing is happening with whiskey. Not only are they drinking more and drinking better, they are becoming engaged in understanding better what they are drinking and why they like it. The thirst for whiskey knowledge is very high. Thankfully our laws and regulations force producers to follow guidelines that should produce a quality product (as long as it is aged properly).