However, all of this ignores what is usually called the “unreported” or “unrecorded” consumption. This includes all sorts of alcohol, such as home-made fermented wine and beer, home-made distilled spirits (moonshine), smuggled alcohol, re-purposed alcohol (eg. originally intended for industrial or medical uses), surrogate alcohol (eg. ethanol), etc. What are we supposed to think regarding all of this? Doesn’t this also count as “alcohol consumption”?
Well, it turns out that the World Health Organization has had a go at trying to look into this topic. Their WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2018 has data for both Recorded and Unrecorded alcohol consumption for each of 189 countries (or territories). You can also find the data tabulated on Wikipedia (List of countries by alcohol consumption per capita).
The data are 3-year averages for 2015–2017, based on persons 15 years and older. The Recorded alcohol “is alcohol consumed as a beverage that is recorded in official statistics, such as data on alcohol taxation or sales” (see the WHO Global Survey on Alcohol and Health), while the Unrecorded amount was mathematically modeled based on the data from several surveys, including expert judgements (see Appendix IV.1.2 of the WHO report). Both data are reported as pure alcohol consumption in liters per capita per year.
I have graphed the data in the following figure. Each point represents one country (or territory) in the WHO table, with the Recorded consumption horizontally and the Unrecorded consumption vertically. The so-called western countries are represented by the orange dots, with the remainder in blue.
The pink line represents the situation where the two types of consumption are equal — above the line, estimated Unrecorded consumption exceeds the officially Recorded consumption, and vice versa below the line.
Note, first, that there are not actually 189 dots visible in the graph, as some countries are superimposed, notably those with both consumptions reported as zero: Bangladesh, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Somalia, and Yemen. Other countries have minuscule consumption, including: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Kiribati, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. These are, as expected, all Moslem-dominated countries.
For the western countries (orange dots in the graph), Recorded consumption usually far exceeds Unrecorded consumption. For example, the countries at the bottom-right of the graph include (from the right); Estonia, Lithuania, Czechia, and Austria. However, there are five such countries where Unrecorded consumption exceeds 30% of the total consumption (the orange points towards the top of the graph): North Macedonia (43%), Greece (40%), the Ukraine (36%), Albania (33%) and Russia (31%). Conversely, those countries where Recorded consumption is less than 10% of the total consumption include: Austria (3.4%), Estonia (6.5%), Italy (6.6%), the Netherlands (7.4%), Australia (7.7%), Lithuania (8.0%), the United States (8.3%) and Belgium (8.8%).
The non-western country at the top-right of the graph is Nigeria, with the sixth biggest total consumption, but with 28% of this being Unrecorded. The countries on the left of the line (Unrecorded > Recorded) are (from top to bottom): Vietnam, Myanmar, Tajikistan, the Maldives, East Timor, and Nepal. Here, access to professionally produced drinks is apparently very limited.
Note that Haiti is on the bottom axis (zero Unrecorded consumption), and Bahrain is only just above that axis. Similarly, a few of countries are on the vertical axis (zero Recorded consumption), including: Comoros, Niger, Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan.
I have included below a list of the countries, ranked in decreasing order of how far they are from equality of Recorded versus Unrecorded consumption. That is, a large positive number in the ranking means that Recorded >> Unrecorded, whereas a negative number indicates Unrecorded > Recorded.
If you would like to see some neat graphs and maps about recorded alcohol worldwide, then consult Our World in Data — Alcohol Consumption.
The saga of the iPad Mini, mentioned in my last post, has continued. In spite of being a recent device, it has an old version of iOS. This version cannot be updated wirelessly, according to the error message I get, when I try to update it. The message says that I must instead use iTunes on a Mac. However, my Mac Mini is old, and when I connect the iPad it tells me that the Mac does not have a version of iTunes that will allow me to do this. I tried to use my MacBook, which is more recent, but its OSX operating system no longer has a separate iTunes app. I eventually found an iMac with an intermediate version of OSX — old enough to still have iTunes but recent enough to allow me to connect the iPad. Why is modern computing like this?!?
The following list sorts the countries by the extent to which Recorded consumption exceeds Unrecorded consumption. At the top of the list are those countries that are furthest from the line of equality, to the right in the graph (Recorded > Unrecorded), while those countries at the bottom are those furthest from the line of equality, to the left in the graph (Unrecorded > Recorded). The numbers are simply the shortest distance from each graph point to the line.
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Territory Estonia Lithuania Czechia Seychelles Austria France Moldova Bulgaria Germany Ireland Belgium Hungary Cook Islands Latvia Slovenia Slovakia Australia Poland United Kingdom Portugal Luxembourg Andorra Equatorial Guinea Croatia Saint Kitts and Nevis Switzerland Denmark Romania Saint Lucia Belarus United States South Korea Cyprus New Zealand Barbados Gabon Grenada Serbia Bahamas Antigua and Barbuda Canada Argentina Uruguay Netherlands Spain Malta Italy Chile Finland Iceland Trinidad and Tobago St Vincent & the Grenadines Nigeria Namibia Uganda Japan Haiti Panama Dominica Brazil Sweden Georgia Niue Norway South Africa Thailand Rwanda Belize Eswatini Montenegro Russia Dominican Republic China Cameroon Botswana Mongolia Paraguay Mexico Kazakhstan Guyana Peru Laos Angola Venezuela Suriname Cuba Colombia Tanzania São Tomé and Príncipe North Korea Bosnia and Herzegovina Costa Rica Albania Cape Verde Bolivia Philippines Nicaragua Ukraine Zimbabwe Jamaica Ecuador Greece Gambia Armenia Bahrain Kyrgyzstan Congo Honduras Burkina Faso El Salvador Singapore Israel Mauritius Turkmenistan North Macedonia Samoa Liberia Fiji Ivory Coast Sierra Leone Sri Lanka Nauru Lesotho Guinea-Bissau Zambia Tunisia Lebanon Micronesia Guatemala Tuvalu Burundi Qatar Turkey Solomon Islands Ghana Uzbekistan Tonga Vanuatu India Kenya Brunei United Arab Emirates Malawi Togo Cambodia Azerbaijan Djibouti Kiribati Mozambique Papua New Guinea Algeria Malaysia Benin Morocco Syria Central African Republic Ethiopia DR Congo Oman Jordan Egypt Iraq Yemen Bangladesh Kuwait Libya Mauritania Somalia Eritrea Mali Saudi Arabia Indonesia Bhutan Afghanistan Madagascar Chad Senegal Pakistan Niger Guinea Sudan Maldives Comoros Nepal East Timor Iran Tajikistan Myanmar Vietnam |
Distance 10.4 8.9 7.8 7.8 7.8 7.3 7.1 7.1 7.0 7.0 6.6 6.6 6.6 6.5 6.4 6.2 6.2 6.2 6.2 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 5.9 5.9 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.6 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.4 5.2 5.2 5.2 5.1 5.1 5.0 5.0 4.9 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.4 4.2 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.0 3.9 3.7 3.7 3.6 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.4 3.4 3.3 3.3 3.2 3.1 3.0 2.9 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.4 2.3 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.2 -0.4 -0.4 -0.4 -0.5 -0.6 -0.6 -0.7 -1.0 -1.1 -1.6 |
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