Most Popular Alcoholic Drink in South America

What’s the preferred alcoholic drink of South Americans?

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We already know what the most popular alcoholic drink is in Europe, but what alcoholic drink do South Americans prefer? As you can see on this map, it’s clearly beer in most parts.

We already saw on a previous map, that people in the south of South America are one of the world’s biggest consumers of wine. For Argentina and Uruguay, wine is also their most consumed alcoholic drink. For Chile, it is not. Despite Chileans drinking a decent amount of wine, they consume even more beer.

In the north, we also see two countries that stand out. Unlike their neighbours, Guyana and Suriname consume more spirits than beer or wine.

The data from this map comes from the WHO. The consumption of the alcoholic drinks, is measured in litres of pure alcohol consumed per adult per year. You’re probably wondering whether it wouldn’t be more accurate to measure it by the total consumed litres per adult per year? For those of you that drink alcohol, you will probably know, that as the alcohol percentage of a drink increases, you drink less of that drink in total. E.g., one can easily drink more than 1 or even 2 litres of beer in an evening, without seriously putting one’s life at risk. That’s of course a totally different story with a drink like vodka, which has a very high percentage of alcohol. Using this measure, will give you a much more accurate perspective on which alcoholic drink is more popular.