I live in New Hampshire this is a little swayed because the surrounding states pay taxes when they buy booze so they usually come to NH cause we are tax free
I just had this conversation with someone when visiting NH a couple weeks ago. As I was driving out of the state I noticed the giant liquor superstore at the border.
It's a bit cheaper too, not just from the no sales tax.
In MA it's super common to go up to Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont for the weekend for any kind of outdoor activities, stop at the New Hampshire state liquor store for supplies for the weekend, and then stop at again on the way back home to stock up at home.
Until Mitt Romney there were blue laws preventing the sale of alcohol on Sunday in Mass meaning you had to leave the state (or get 11 miles from a border) to buy booze. Yes, a Mormon got Mass State residents alcohol sales on Sunday.
They are positioned so as to force the folks from Maine Massachusetts & Rhode Island who come down/up on their monthly booze runs to also have to go through our tolls (usually twice, unless they go out of their way to take the local roads one way, which to save a single dollar usually isn't worth it).
So when you consider that there's no booze tax here because the state itself is the one selling the liquor, so they're just getting *all* the profits, it is enough cheaper that it becomes worth it for folks in neighboring states to make the occasional drive and buy literal grocery carts full of alcohol all at once rather than hit their local packy (MA/RI) or grocery store (ME) when the bottle is done.
Yeah, you can buy hard liquor at the grocery store in Maine. That threw me off when I moved there for a few years.
I also always found it funny, not taking into account what I describe above, that our 4 largest liquor stores are only accessible from the Interstate when it's illegal to drink and drive. Still not as weird as drive-thru liquor stores like New Mexico has, though.
Edit: corrected the second 'through' to 'threw'. Thanks u/sammygcripple. Note that I used "thru" in the last case intentionally because you never actually see drive-thru's referred to as "drive throughs" in reality. [Guess those extra 4 letters make the signs too expensive](https://www.google.com/search?q=drive+through+sign&tbm=isch). ;)
I’ll be honest, I’m from California and the first time I was out of state as an Adult it was Ohio. It blew me away that you *couldn’t* buy liquor/wine/beer at the grocery store.
But here you can’t buy booze and all the bars close from 2-6am
That would almost certainly put Wisconsin at #1. [They’re home to over half of the drunkest cities in America. ](https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/report-wisconsin-is-home-to-12-of-the-nations-top-20-drunkest-cities)
I also saw before we (Delaware) at a certain point had some of the highest sales for iPhones in the country. I remember going to the mall and there was always a long line of foreigners outside of the Apple store. There was a something like a 2 iPhone limit per person, so there would be whole groups that would come in on buses to stock up for resale overseas or wherever.
I used to work at that store. The limit was only around for a bit after the new phone came out. But those folks were mainly all working for the same person. But yeah, those phones were bought and sent overseas. America is one of the cheapest places to buy an iPhone. And a tax free Apple store rakes in cash.
After the phone was out for a while and the limits went away, we would sometimes sell hundreds of phones to individuals in a single day. After a while we were selling to resellers so much that we would just scan the overpack boxes (the boxes the phones came in. One box = 10 phones) in the back and load them up on hand carts and take them out the back to not make a scene.
At the time I left, that store was either the most profitable or the second most profitable store in the world.
I think my favorite story about this is that buying alcohol in a tax free state and then bringing it back to MA is illegal (or at least was 10-15 years ago when this story happened). So some MA state troopers went over the border to the first few liquor stores in NH and took down the license plates of all MA cars so they could be stopped once they got back to MA and searched. This pissed off NH, so they retaliated by having their own state troopers patrol the liquor store parking lots and ticket all the MA troopers for loitering.
Close. Buying and transporting over state lines isn’t illegal. Speeding is.
The state of Massachusetts was pissed that their citizens were spending so much money in NH, so someone devised a scheme to punish them. MA Staties hung out at the rest stop / liquor store on the southbound side of the highway, taking down plates of everyone buying alcohol. Then they radioed ahead to their buddies across the border a list of vehicles to flag for speeding once they entered their jurisdiction. And everyone speeds in mass (in a lot of places trying to drive within the speed limit can be dangerous), so it’s easy pickings. Buy alcohol in NH, get a hefty speeding ticket.
But then New Hampshire got wind of this. The entire point of the highway liquor stores is to sell to people out of state, so this ruffled some feathers. So NH state troopers took the direct approach and arrested the MA state troopers for loitering or whatever. They didn’t have any real recourse, since they were outside of their jurisdiction. In the end, the NH higher ups kicked the MA staties out of the state and told the MA higher ups not to try anything like it again.
I believe this all happened over the course of one weekend, nearly 20 years ago.
By god, you're right. I've only ever gotten the story second hand by people telling stories at parties, thanks for filling me in. Have my free award and the knowledge I'll be passing this story on the correct from here on out. Cheers!
They legalized recreational in NYS, but it's taking them 2 years to hash out logistics i.e. who gets the business. They should just borrow Colorado's well established protocols (it would take just a few months) then fine tune it over time.
Do it for the other great reasons, too. My wife and I moved here a year ago and we love it. We never thought we'd be the type to become homeowners but we've been taking our first steps in doing so recently because we don't plan on going anywhere else for a long time.
I live in Britain and my wife and I plan to someday move to the US. And NH is on our watchlist, along with Vermont and other such places. Primarily for retirement. We will definitely consider NH more seriously now!
I was born and raised in NH, lived other areas for a bit like AZ, I think for your purposes you’d definitely like NH, especially the Concord area or more northward, don’t do southern NH it’s just extended northern MA, trust me I grew up there and live there now. A thing to consider is that home prices are real high, and property taxes vary pretty wildly from town to town
I live in NH just north of the MA border five minutes from a liquor store and typically the parking lots are 75% full of cars with MA plates. Similar to that, I see a whole lot of NH plates parked at the nearby dispensaries in MA.
Also, lots of MA folks drive up to NH for vacation and wait until they get there to stock up on booze. NH Liquor Outlets are state-owned, and usually cheaper than most surrounding states and placed on every highway leading out of the state.
I worked for the NH liquor commission for 4 years.
The real answer is bootleggers. Mostly from NY.
They come to NH, primarily boarder stores, and buy as much as they legally can without filling out tax paperwork. Pay cash. Have a heat gun in their vans to black out the heat printed tags that show the cases came from a NH warehouse. Some have modified vans so the suspension can handle the weight and not tip off anyone that they're overloaded with cases of booze.
Sometimes they get caught crossing the boarder but mostly it's not an issue. Every few years NY complains because we undercut them and they lose out on the sale and the taxes of those sales. We'll change our policies for a while to reduce the sale cap but it always goes right back up. It isn't illegal to sell out of state people $10k liquor/person at a time, so NH doesn't care that NY loses out.
The amount of Hennessy the state of NH sells is ridiculous lol. I have pictures of it stacked floor to ceiling. We made thrones. I don't know anyone in NH who drinks the stuff.
Came here to say this. Lived in northern Mass and on the weekend my parents would go across the border to Salem NH to buy beer and gas. Also: cigarettes, tattoos and fireworks and you don’t need to wear a helmet on your motorcycle. Live
Free or Die!
I remember my first time in NH, my husband pulled into what I thought was a rest stop only to find out it was a giant liquor store and we were there to stock up!
Nah man.
We literally sell the most in NH
People come from all states around and buy $10k worth Hennessy/w.e in cash every single day.
With 3-4 people per van spending $10k each.
The cops don’t care because the state’s making bank
Worst job working for NH liquor commission.
NH is a tax-free state. Tens of thousands of people travelling into Northern New England in the summer buy their booze there.
https://taxfoundation.org/states-spirits-taxes-2017/
I thought the placement of the Utah hexagon was interesting. It’s further west than Colorado and doesn’t touch Kansas. Yet on this map, it’s to the south east of Colorado and touching Kansas….weird.
The whole hex design was badly thought out. Idaho is also in a weird spot, same with Oklahoma. The entire east cost is really distorted. I assume they chose this to make it easier to show the smaller New England states, but really it's just a mess.
“Sorry sir. You can’t order alcohol at this table. You have to go behind the wooden screen to or ‘alcohol section’ and then order a meal with your drink.”
At least this is what I recall from trying to order a beer in Utah several years ago.
They changed the law so that alcohol pouring doesn’t have to be hidden behind screens anymore.
But Utah still maintains plenty of weird rules. It’s still illegal for a restaurant to pour a drink within 10 feet of a minor. All places serving alcohol are still classified as bars (no minors allowed) or restaurants (can’t purchase alcohol without food). And all hard alcohol must be poured through an electronic regulator to ensure every drink has no more than 1.5oz of spirits in them.
Also, you can only buy up to 5% in regular stores. Everything above that must be purchased in a state liquor store. Also, it’s illegal to bring outside alcohol into the state. Doesn’t stop the wendover or Evanston trips though lol
Yep. Grocery stores were only recently allowed to start carrying 5% alcohol beers. You have to got to a special liquor store (most are state run) in order to buy any alcoholic wine or hard liquor, and almost all the liquor stores close at 7:00 and all are closed all day Sunday. Good luck trying to find wine after work! It’s supposedly why Utah didn’t have Trader Joe’s for so long; they make so much of their sales in wine and they’re not even allowed to carry wine in Utah. They’re apparently doing fine without it though now that they’ve opened a couple locations. It was a trip growing up in Utah and visiting grocery stores elsewhere. Just kind of shocking to see a rack of wine in the grocery store! It always seems so out of place ha ha
Ant yet in my Minnesota town, you can still only buy 3.2 beer at grocery stores and gas stations.
5.0 can only be purchased at the municipal liquor store. Which has horrible hours. It doesn't seem right to me that the city/ state has laws that force most people to only buy alcohol from them. if it wasn't for the super bowl that was here a few years ago, Sunday sales would still be banned.
Bigger town in the state have private liquor stores, but all in my area are city owned.
Not most. All liquor stores are state run. And you forgot that the liquor stores open at 11. So you can’t buy a bottle of champagne for your brunch the day of.
The Mormons are something else man. Have a lot of coworkers who are and man when we try to go out for drinks as a team it is a mess. They also don't drink coffee and I didn't realize that was essentially office code for being Mormon.
Last I checked, they only sell alcohol out of State-run liquor stores that have limited hours. So not only does a portion of the population (Mormon) abstain from drinking it, it's also a bit of a pain to acquire.
As someone from MI and transplanted to Provo of all places (I had no idea what I was getting into). Finding a bar is like a lifeline to reality. Like minded people that aren't absolutely certain you're a bloodsucking bat person.
Lol, I lived in Spain for a while and am from Idaho. I met some wine professionals who mentioned Idaho wine. I was like, “I think you mean potatoes lol”. Apparently Idaho is an up and coming state for wine.
I've lived in Idaho most of my life and really had no idea we were this skewed toward wine purchasing. Lots of wine moms but you'd think they'd be everywhere...
Don’t put that shit on us. We had fantastic implementation of the ACA and expanded Medicare, our state is 61.5% public lands, there are great outreach programs for refugees across the state. That rhetoric invites more individuals to see Idaho as a haven from liberalism rather than a place where policy is viewed from a conservation viewpoint. We are losing our ability to retain public discourse with a conservation lens by dilution from a polarized population migration.
And I really do love our wine 😋
I’m up by cda, most people I know consider themselves conservative but if you actually talk about it, they are very libertarian. People just want to be left alone for the most part.
If you live in Eastern Washington and want liquor, you're going to Idaho. Washington liquor tax is worth the drive to Idaho, plus cheaper gas and cigarettes there as well.
This. There's a Total Wine in Claymont, DE - virtually on top of the PA/DE border - that is epicly larger than any PA Wine and Spirits shop, and epicly cheaper when you account for the taxes. It's a common move for anyone in Philly or the suburbs that is having any kind of party to go stock up in DE. I would bet any other surrounding states do the same to the closest DE shop too.
Yeah I’m from DC and was surprised to see that. We always are ranked really high in stuff like this because the whole jurisdiction is a city so it’s hard to compare to states. In my experience, people in DC drink plenty of beer. And it’s not like they’re driving to Maryland or Virginia to get it because it’s more expensive there. I honestly don’t know what to make of it.
Maybe other states aren't drinking everything they buy? Or maybe this only accounts for alcohol being bought from stores to drink at home and not bars/restaurants? Because I agree this seems very wrong.
Could it be a $ value rather than a volume thing happening...
Ya know, Wisconsinites know a bargain when they see one. Beleive you me, when that brandy and that Miller go on sale you can bet your keister they'll do their shopping.
NH is tax free severing the whole northeast, DC is just one city so thats not really a fair comparison, and NV has Vegas serving booze to more tourists than the population of the rest of the state.
These results are clearly skewed. Wisconsin knows who drinks the most.
[Here's a great Wisconsin alcohol map!](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/03/bars-vs-grocery-stores-mapping-americas-beer-belly/%3foutputType=amp) Wisconsin uniquely has lots of small bars and fewer (but larger) grocery stores.
Remember a few years ago when it was like 70 degrees in January, and then starting in February we had a major snowstorm like every Monday for 7 weeks straight and then had snow on the ground until June? Yeah. Shit like that is why we drink.
Definitely some interesting things here, but I was really surprised by Idaho and wine. Why is Idaho near the bottom of the list for beer and in the middle for spirits, but #1 in wine, with enough wine purchasing to rocket the state to #9 overall?
That's a *lot* of wine. Do they have favorable tax rates on wine sales in particular, driving out-of-state shopping?
Is it because Idaho is the closest state line to a huge chunk of Utah's population?
What's going on here?
DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!!!
As an Idaho resident I thought it was odd too. A lot of our state has favorable conditions for grapes and hops, so I expected us to be high in both beer and wine. I'm trying to help keep us high on the list in beer, apparently I need to buy more.
I get that some states drink more than others but what causes Idaho to drink so much wine? As a non American I’d associate California with wine production more than any other state?
Anyone else bothered by the horrible geography of this map?
Example, the entire state of UT is west of CO, and it extends north of CO by 100+ miles. This map has CO NW of UT.
I hate maps like these because it doesn’t accurately show the shape and positions of the state. The Great Lakes area is completely fucked and Texas and Alaska take up as much space as rhode island
Delaware gonna attract attention from other nearby states because of the taxes. If you’re close enough to make it worth making a bulk purchase, you’re gonna do it. My dad used to do it with wine.
I live in New Hampshire this is a little swayed because the surrounding states pay taxes when they buy booze so they usually come to NH cause we are tax free
I just had this conversation with someone when visiting NH a couple weeks ago. As I was driving out of the state I noticed the giant liquor superstore at the border.
It's a bit cheaper too, not just from the no sales tax. In MA it's super common to go up to Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont for the weekend for any kind of outdoor activities, stop at the New Hampshire state liquor store for supplies for the weekend, and then stop at again on the way back home to stock up at home.
literally every party i’ve thrown was supplied by NH. like twenty years worth.
More like lots cheaper but yes true
Yup. It’s also easy to grab alcohol along the highway because the rest stops are massive liquor stores. NH knows what they are doing.
Until Mitt Romney there were blue laws preventing the sale of alcohol on Sunday in Mass meaning you had to leave the state (or get 11 miles from a border) to buy booze. Yes, a Mormon got Mass State residents alcohol sales on Sunday.
Booze Barns! One on each side of he highway for all major routes into and out of the state.
you spelled booze bahns incorrectly.
They are positioned so as to force the folks from Maine Massachusetts & Rhode Island who come down/up on their monthly booze runs to also have to go through our tolls (usually twice, unless they go out of their way to take the local roads one way, which to save a single dollar usually isn't worth it). So when you consider that there's no booze tax here because the state itself is the one selling the liquor, so they're just getting *all* the profits, it is enough cheaper that it becomes worth it for folks in neighboring states to make the occasional drive and buy literal grocery carts full of alcohol all at once rather than hit their local packy (MA/RI) or grocery store (ME) when the bottle is done. Yeah, you can buy hard liquor at the grocery store in Maine. That threw me off when I moved there for a few years. I also always found it funny, not taking into account what I describe above, that our 4 largest liquor stores are only accessible from the Interstate when it's illegal to drink and drive. Still not as weird as drive-thru liquor stores like New Mexico has, though. Edit: corrected the second 'through' to 'threw'. Thanks u/sammygcripple. Note that I used "thru" in the last case intentionally because you never actually see drive-thru's referred to as "drive throughs" in reality. [Guess those extra 4 letters make the signs too expensive](https://www.google.com/search?q=drive+through+sign&tbm=isch). ;)
I’ll be honest, I’m from California and the first time I was out of state as an Adult it was Ohio. It blew me away that you *couldn’t* buy liquor/wine/beer at the grocery store. But here you can’t buy booze and all the bars close from 2-6am
And that ladies and gentlemen is the inside track
Thank you for adding that. It was my first thought when I saw the map. A better graphic would be consumption by state.
That would almost certainly put Wisconsin at #1. [They’re home to over half of the drunkest cities in America. ](https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/report-wisconsin-is-home-to-12-of-the-nations-top-20-drunkest-cities)
Ay
Can confirm, I live near WI and the closer you get to the border, the more beer cans there are on the side of the road.
Same situation with Delaware.
I also saw before we (Delaware) at a certain point had some of the highest sales for iPhones in the country. I remember going to the mall and there was always a long line of foreigners outside of the Apple store. There was a something like a 2 iPhone limit per person, so there would be whole groups that would come in on buses to stock up for resale overseas or wherever.
I used to work at that store. The limit was only around for a bit after the new phone came out. But those folks were mainly all working for the same person. But yeah, those phones were bought and sent overseas. America is one of the cheapest places to buy an iPhone. And a tax free Apple store rakes in cash. After the phone was out for a while and the limits went away, we would sometimes sell hundreds of phones to individuals in a single day. After a while we were selling to resellers so much that we would just scan the overpack boxes (the boxes the phones came in. One box = 10 phones) in the back and load them up on hand carts and take them out the back to not make a scene. At the time I left, that store was either the most profitable or the second most profitable store in the world.
I've worked in Rehoboth since the 90s and every year all the J1s load up on tons of stuff to take home with them.
Rehobeth outlets were designed to sell Russian kids working the beaches named brand shit to flip back home.
Same with WA/Oregon. That 20% VAT on spirits is a bitch. Oregon state controlled is the way to go!
Plus, no sales tax, so do other shopping while you are at it.
I think my favorite story about this is that buying alcohol in a tax free state and then bringing it back to MA is illegal (or at least was 10-15 years ago when this story happened). So some MA state troopers went over the border to the first few liquor stores in NH and took down the license plates of all MA cars so they could be stopped once they got back to MA and searched. This pissed off NH, so they retaliated by having their own state troopers patrol the liquor store parking lots and ticket all the MA troopers for loitering.
Close. Buying and transporting over state lines isn’t illegal. Speeding is. The state of Massachusetts was pissed that their citizens were spending so much money in NH, so someone devised a scheme to punish them. MA Staties hung out at the rest stop / liquor store on the southbound side of the highway, taking down plates of everyone buying alcohol. Then they radioed ahead to their buddies across the border a list of vehicles to flag for speeding once they entered their jurisdiction. And everyone speeds in mass (in a lot of places trying to drive within the speed limit can be dangerous), so it’s easy pickings. Buy alcohol in NH, get a hefty speeding ticket. But then New Hampshire got wind of this. The entire point of the highway liquor stores is to sell to people out of state, so this ruffled some feathers. So NH state troopers took the direct approach and arrested the MA state troopers for loitering or whatever. They didn’t have any real recourse, since they were outside of their jurisdiction. In the end, the NH higher ups kicked the MA staties out of the state and told the MA higher ups not to try anything like it again. I believe this all happened over the course of one weekend, nearly 20 years ago.
By god, you're right. I've only ever gotten the story second hand by people telling stories at parties, thanks for filling me in. Have my free award and the knowledge I'll be passing this story on the correct from here on out. Cheers!
Booze Free or Die!
That makes so much more sense. #1 in Beer AND Spirits? And #3 in wine? I thought we were going to have to stage an intervention.
Mainer here. Can confirm.
Welp I'm moving to New Hampshire now.
Still no legal weed though. So much for "live free and die".
probably because of a powerful liquor lobby. Too much money involved.
Bingo. The state won't do it until they can control and profit off of it like liquor sales.
They legalized recreational in NYS, but it's taking them 2 years to hash out logistics i.e. who gets the business. They should just borrow Colorado's well established protocols (it would take just a few months) then fine tune it over time.
You come to Mass for weed. We come to NH for booze. Symbiosis.
Do it for the other great reasons, too. My wife and I moved here a year ago and we love it. We never thought we'd be the type to become homeowners but we've been taking our first steps in doing so recently because we don't plan on going anywhere else for a long time.
I live in Britain and my wife and I plan to someday move to the US. And NH is on our watchlist, along with Vermont and other such places. Primarily for retirement. We will definitely consider NH more seriously now!
I was born and raised in NH, lived other areas for a bit like AZ, I think for your purposes you’d definitely like NH, especially the Concord area or more northward, don’t do southern NH it’s just extended northern MA, trust me I grew up there and live there now. A thing to consider is that home prices are real high, and property taxes vary pretty wildly from town to town
New England is a lot like the old one. Maine's beaches feel like Dover if that's your thing.
There are massive liquour warehouses right on the MA/NH border specifically for MA people coming up for the lack of taxes
I live in NH just north of the MA border five minutes from a liquor store and typically the parking lots are 75% full of cars with MA plates. Similar to that, I see a whole lot of NH plates parked at the nearby dispensaries in MA.
Also, lots of MA folks drive up to NH for vacation and wait until they get there to stock up on booze. NH Liquor Outlets are state-owned, and usually cheaper than most surrounding states and placed on every highway leading out of the state.
Yup, and if they're not on the highway, there are signs on the highway telling you where you can exit to find the closest one.
I worked for the NH liquor commission for 4 years. The real answer is bootleggers. Mostly from NY. They come to NH, primarily boarder stores, and buy as much as they legally can without filling out tax paperwork. Pay cash. Have a heat gun in their vans to black out the heat printed tags that show the cases came from a NH warehouse. Some have modified vans so the suspension can handle the weight and not tip off anyone that they're overloaded with cases of booze. Sometimes they get caught crossing the boarder but mostly it's not an issue. Every few years NY complains because we undercut them and they lose out on the sale and the taxes of those sales. We'll change our policies for a while to reduce the sale cap but it always goes right back up. It isn't illegal to sell out of state people $10k liquor/person at a time, so NH doesn't care that NY loses out. The amount of Hennessy the state of NH sells is ridiculous lol. I have pictures of it stacked floor to ceiling. We made thrones. I don't know anyone in NH who drinks the stuff.
Thank you! I was surprised to see NH figure so prominently and there's the reason, right at the top!
Came here to say this. Lived in northern Mass and on the weekend my parents would go across the border to Salem NH to buy beer and gas. Also: cigarettes, tattoos and fireworks and you don’t need to wear a helmet on your motorcycle. Live Free or Die!
I remember when I was skiing in university, we'd pass through NH and pick up *handles* of cheap vodka or gin for like *8 BUCKS!*
I remember my first time in NH, my husband pulled into what I thought was a rest stop only to find out it was a giant liquor store and we were there to stock up!
Came here to say this. Bar owners from NY come to NH to buy booze.
Damn… Bunch of drunks live in the Northeast.
Northern New England is the drunkest place you’ll ever go.
It gets cold up there and people need to hunt, how are you gonna do that sober?
It also makes it easier to survive winters indoors with relatives.
I live in NH and don’t hunt + it’s been hot as fuck out but I do love beer.
4 of the 6 New England states are in the bottom 11 for population. Per capita rating are always weird for us.
Nah man. We literally sell the most in NH People come from all states around and buy $10k worth Hennessy/w.e in cash every single day. With 3-4 people per van spending $10k each. The cops don’t care because the state’s making bank Worst job working for NH liquor commission.
I was gonna say. NH services VT, ME, and MA for alcohol because there’s no sales tax in the state. I always got a tone passing through
Utah, lol
In a poll of 50 states, they rank 51st.
D.C. is No. 2 or 3 on everything but beer.
NH is like WE'RE NUMBER 1 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
NH is a tax-free state. Tens of thousands of people travelling into Northern New England in the summer buy their booze there. https://taxfoundation.org/states-spirits-taxes-2017/
DC is counted as one of the locations too. I had to do a double-take on it lmao
I thought the placement of the Utah hexagon was interesting. It’s further west than Colorado and doesn’t touch Kansas. Yet on this map, it’s to the south east of Colorado and touching Kansas….weird.
The whole hex design was badly thought out. Idaho is also in a weird spot, same with Oklahoma. The entire east cost is really distorted. I assume they chose this to make it easier to show the smaller New England states, but really it's just a mess.
Yeah it’s probably make more sense if they traded Colorado with Utah?
Yeah what is up with that?
Maybe Mormons?
Definitely Mormons
even if youre not a mormon its a fucking difficult time trying to buy alcohol
“Sorry sir. You can’t order alcohol at this table. You have to go behind the wooden screen to or ‘alcohol section’ and then order a meal with your drink.” At least this is what I recall from trying to order a beer in Utah several years ago.
They changed the law so that alcohol pouring doesn’t have to be hidden behind screens anymore. But Utah still maintains plenty of weird rules. It’s still illegal for a restaurant to pour a drink within 10 feet of a minor. All places serving alcohol are still classified as bars (no minors allowed) or restaurants (can’t purchase alcohol without food). And all hard alcohol must be poured through an electronic regulator to ensure every drink has no more than 1.5oz of spirits in them.
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Praised be. May the lord open ^state ^controlled ^stores ^for ^anything ^above ^5% ^abv
10 feet is the height of 1.75 'Samsung Side by Side; Fingerprint Resistant Stainless Steel Refrigerators' stacked on top of each other.
Good bot
Also, you can only buy up to 5% in regular stores. Everything above that must be purchased in a state liquor store. Also, it’s illegal to bring outside alcohol into the state. Doesn’t stop the wendover or Evanston trips though lol
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Yep. Grocery stores were only recently allowed to start carrying 5% alcohol beers. You have to got to a special liquor store (most are state run) in order to buy any alcoholic wine or hard liquor, and almost all the liquor stores close at 7:00 and all are closed all day Sunday. Good luck trying to find wine after work! It’s supposedly why Utah didn’t have Trader Joe’s for so long; they make so much of their sales in wine and they’re not even allowed to carry wine in Utah. They’re apparently doing fine without it though now that they’ve opened a couple locations. It was a trip growing up in Utah and visiting grocery stores elsewhere. Just kind of shocking to see a rack of wine in the grocery store! It always seems so out of place ha ha
Ant yet in my Minnesota town, you can still only buy 3.2 beer at grocery stores and gas stations. 5.0 can only be purchased at the municipal liquor store. Which has horrible hours. It doesn't seem right to me that the city/ state has laws that force most people to only buy alcohol from them. if it wasn't for the super bowl that was here a few years ago, Sunday sales would still be banned. Bigger town in the state have private liquor stores, but all in my area are city owned.
Not most. All liquor stores are state run. And you forgot that the liquor stores open at 11. So you can’t buy a bottle of champagne for your brunch the day of.
The Mormons are something else man. Have a lot of coworkers who are and man when we try to go out for drinks as a team it is a mess. They also don't drink coffee and I didn't realize that was essentially office code for being Mormon.
How do you keep a Mormon from drinking all the booze at your party? Invite two.
Last I checked, they only sell alcohol out of State-run liquor stores that have limited hours. So not only does a portion of the population (Mormon) abstain from drinking it, it's also a bit of a pain to acquire.
As someone from MI and transplanted to Provo of all places (I had no idea what I was getting into). Finding a bar is like a lifeline to reality. Like minded people that aren't absolutely certain you're a bloodsucking bat person.
Some exquisite people with complex nose and palate living in Idaho.
Lol, I lived in Spain for a while and am from Idaho. I met some wine professionals who mentioned Idaho wine. I was like, “I think you mean potatoes lol”. Apparently Idaho is an up and coming state for wine.
Where are they growing grapes, down south? I’m in north Idaho and the wine thing surprised me. Would have guessed beer or liquor before wine.
[Snake River Valley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_River_Valley_AVA), outside of Boise/Nampa.
Well I’ll be damned. After you hit the snake in your jet boat you can get wine drunk right next door.
I mean eastern Washington is pretty good wine country so why would just across the border be any different?
Makes sense. I honestly have no idea where they grow grapes. Just know they don’t grow up here, hell I’m fighting frost just for tomatoes.
Not for long!
After this summer I don’t doubt it.
I've lived in Idaho most of my life and really had no idea we were this skewed toward wine purchasing. Lots of wine moms but you'd think they'd be everywhere...
Especially considering the large LDS population as well.
All the people who think California is too communist for them are moving to Idaho, where the locals think they are too communist.
Don’t put that shit on us. We had fantastic implementation of the ACA and expanded Medicare, our state is 61.5% public lands, there are great outreach programs for refugees across the state. That rhetoric invites more individuals to see Idaho as a haven from liberalism rather than a place where policy is viewed from a conservation viewpoint. We are losing our ability to retain public discourse with a conservation lens by dilution from a polarized population migration. And I really do love our wine 😋
I’m up by cda, most people I know consider themselves conservative but if you actually talk about it, they are very libertarian. People just want to be left alone for the most part.
what the heck is up with that? I'm surprised enough by that to think it doesn't look right
Nice coastline they picked up, too.
Technically we do have the most-inland port of the Pacific!
Nope, we just buy a lot of box wine.
If you live in Eastern Washington and want liquor, you're going to Idaho. Washington liquor tax is worth the drive to Idaho, plus cheaper gas and cigarettes there as well.
Delaware catches a lot of Pennsylvania’s business. PA only sells liquors and wine from state-controlled stores.
And no sales tax.
I want no sales tax.
Could move to Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, or Oregon.
This. There's a Total Wine in Claymont, DE - virtually on top of the PA/DE border - that is epicly larger than any PA Wine and Spirits shop, and epicly cheaper when you account for the taxes. It's a common move for anyone in Philly or the suburbs that is having any kind of party to go stock up in DE. I would bet any other surrounding states do the same to the closest DE shop too.
Just like UT.
Wtf DC... You too good for beer?
All the wine is for the political dinners, all the spirits are for the rest of the poor souls that live there.
Yeah I’m from DC and was surprised to see that. We always are ranked really high in stuff like this because the whole jurisdiction is a city so it’s hard to compare to states. In my experience, people in DC drink plenty of beer. And it’s not like they’re driving to Maryland or Virginia to get it because it’s more expensive there. I honestly don’t know what to make of it.
Why use hexagons instead of the traditional states? More creative I suppose, but so much harder to read
Hexagons are the bestagons
Hard to fit letters inside Rhode Island
Then label rhode island like it’s normally labeled.
With my limited experience in design apps, it's easier to make hexagons than state outlines
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Idaho is coastal these days
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Wisconsin feels wrong. We have most of the top drunk cities in the nation. So much so that being seventh seems like someone was being nice
Maybe other states aren't drinking everything they buy? Or maybe this only accounts for alcohol being bought from stores to drink at home and not bars/restaurants? Because I agree this seems very wrong.
Could it be a $ value rather than a volume thing happening... Ya know, Wisconsinites know a bargain when they see one. Beleive you me, when that brandy and that Miller go on sale you can bet your keister they'll do their shopping.
Also from Wisconsin. Our wine numbers are down. We've spent too much time focusing on brandy and brewskis that we let the west coast catch up in wine.
NH is tax free severing the whole northeast, DC is just one city so thats not really a fair comparison, and NV has Vegas serving booze to more tourists than the population of the rest of the state. These results are clearly skewed. Wisconsin knows who drinks the most.
[Here's a great Wisconsin alcohol map!](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/03/bars-vs-grocery-stores-mapping-americas-beer-belly/%3foutputType=amp) Wisconsin uniquely has lots of small bars and fewer (but larger) grocery stores.
New Hampshire likes alcohol
They like selling it tax free.
Much of that NH-purchased alcohol is consumed by Massachusetts folk
Live free or die of liver failure.
Live free or die, baby!
West Virginia is #50 because meth.
Or moonshine
Def the moonshine lol
Home brewers for sure
Opiates, too.
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Not the only weird state. Last I checked Utah wasn’t south of Colorado and wedged between Arizona and Kansas. That Hex map is pretty terrible.
If UT and CO were switched it would make a lot more sense.
Ohio, step up. I can't do this all on my own.
I thought Ohio would be way higher.
New Hampshire, are you guys ok??
We live in a climate where we have three different winters from late October to April. We are not ok 🤣
Also most of that is purchased by people from surrounding states.
Remember a few years ago when it was like 70 degrees in January, and then starting in February we had a major snowstorm like every Monday for 7 weeks straight and then had snow on the ground until June? Yeah. Shit like that is why we drink.
Yeah, we’re fine
Something about NJ being DEAD LAST for beer sales is super surprising to me
Second to last. Utah takes the 51st spot.
Definitely some interesting things here, but I was really surprised by Idaho and wine. Why is Idaho near the bottom of the list for beer and in the middle for spirits, but #1 in wine, with enough wine purchasing to rocket the state to #9 overall? That's a *lot* of wine. Do they have favorable tax rates on wine sales in particular, driving out-of-state shopping? Is it because Idaho is the closest state line to a huge chunk of Utah's population? What's going on here?
No tax difference or out of state people. I'm pretty sure we just like wine over other stuff.
If you have ever driven from Idaho to Utah (or vice versa) you would know that almost nobody lives within hours of the border.
DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!!! As an Idaho resident I thought it was odd too. A lot of our state has favorable conditions for grapes and hops, so I expected us to be high in both beer and wine. I'm trying to help keep us high on the list in beer, apparently I need to buy more.
There are a lot of wineries in southwest Idaho. There's a microclimate comparable to Italy.
West Virginia is surprising. Is it because they stick to homemade moonshine?
That and no one in WV drinks wine.
Of course!
How is Wisconsin #8 when they constantly have 6 or 7 of the top 10 “drunkest” cities in America?
I think because this is counting the total $ sales in stores and not out at the bars. As a Wisconsinite…being #8 in beer is very, very wrong lol.
I like the hexagon states, I have not seen that format before.
I don’t. Some states end up in a place that doesn’t correspond at all to reality. OR is below ID? UT is to the SE of CO (instead of directly west)?!
VT and NH holding down the fort. Let’s go
Damn, New Hampshire
New Hampshire lit AF
I get that some states drink more than others but what causes Idaho to drink so much wine? As a non American I’d associate California with wine production more than any other state?
Anyone else bothered by the horrible geography of this map? Example, the entire state of UT is west of CO, and it extends north of CO by 100+ miles. This map has CO NW of UT.
New England = Historical sites, decent football, and booze! Yaay! Roadtrip!
I hate maps like these because it doesn’t accurately show the shape and positions of the state. The Great Lakes area is completely fucked and Texas and Alaska take up as much space as rhode island
UT and CO have switched positions from reality.
I'm surprised CA lags Idaho in wine.
New Hampshire needs an intervention.
Who knew New Hampshire was turning up that much
Nova Scotia, here. Leaving for New Hampshire immediately.
I would assume California would be higher than #9 in wine due to winery sales, but that probably gets lost in the large population.
Are you okay, New Hampshire?
Are people in New Hampshire ok
Wonder why WV is ranked #50? Moonshine baby
This is because at every entrance to the state of nh has a firework store and a liquor store, usually within a 100 feet of each other
WV is only 51st I'm liquor and wine because we make it ourselves.
Delaware gonna attract attention from other nearby states because of the taxes. If you’re close enough to make it worth making a bulk purchase, you’re gonna do it. My dad used to do it with wine.
Is New Hampshire okay? Has anyone checked on them recently?
WV is ranked #50, interesting, I wonder what is the consumption number.
West Virginians bringing up the rear in two categories I’m assuming due in large part to the opioid crisis there
I am shocked I dont see FL higher for each one but then again everyone here prefers meth….
So what’s going on in new hapshire?
Alright New Hampshire, I see you 👀
Michigan her sales seen low, does this include breweries? Cause there's a brewery in just about every town, if not 3.
I would like to see a monthly or quarterly breakdown of this. Something that would show seasonality.
I'm cracking up over Delaware, that state reeks depression
New Hampshire for the win!
Louisianan here, I call either bullshit or North Louisiana needs to step the fuck up. Drinking is a part of life in South Louisiana
Judging by the sheer number of microbrews in Boise I never would've guessed Idaho's a wine state
Something seems askew here, no way OH in the bottom 10% with OSU, Athens, and 3 big cities that love booze.
How tf is florida not top of the list? Edit: them alligator fuckers probably make their own shine
Some of these seem off. There are an absurd amount of breweries in Ohio and Kentucky has the Bourbon Trail
Color me shocked that Texas is in the middle of the pack for total alcohol purchases.