Spain Now Ranks Above Britain In This One Damning Statistic

For years now, the British people have been hit with the drinking culture stick and how they love booze, but now it appears they are certainly not the worst in Europe.

According to a study that was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the country that enjoys drinking the most is the Cook Islands, followed by Latvia and then the Czech Republic round off the top three.

The United Kingdom, however, doesn’t even rank inside the top 20 countries that love to drink the most compared to the population of the country with their total litres drank by one person in a year being a very modest 9.8.

Therefore, there are a lot of bigger countries that are perhaps seen as more classy and sophisticated compared to the United Kingdom which rank way ahead of the island nation, including the likes of Spain, Portugal, Germany and the Republic of Ireland.

Cook Islands top the alcohol consumption charts

Out of those countries listed above, is the Republic of Ireland that ranks the highest with an average of 10.91 litres drank per year by a single person and then Spain comes next ranking 17th in the list with 10.72 litres per year.

Something that is a recurring theme through the list is that three of the top five countries in terms of alcohol consumption are in Eastern Europe, which is the home of vodka, suggesting that this will likely play a big role in them consuming so much alcohol every single year.

This list doesn’t specify what kind of alcohol, but Eastern Europe is likely to be mainly spirits and vodka specifically, whereas in mainland Europe countries such as Spain and Portugal could be more wine given the more cultured approach to life many have.

Spain above the likes of UK and Germany

However, Spain may not be a surprise to be that high up given the number of Brits that decide to retire and call the sunny country their new home, so they will likely count towards the huge gap between them and the UK in alcohol consumption.

The fact that the UK are so low down in this list is quite surprising, but could well be down to their much smaller population than other countries, although the drinking culture in Britain is very prominent and only growing larger every year.