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And The Drunkest City In America Goes To...Boston!

A mug from Cheers in Boston, Mass. (Jesper Rønn-Jensen/Flickr)
A mug from Cheers in Boston, Mass. (Jesper Rønn-Jensen/Flickr)

In a finding that may or may not be surprising, Boston has been ranked No. 1 in The Daily Beast's list of the "25 Drunkest Cities" of 2012. It's the second straight year that the city received the Beast's No. 1. ranking.

Comprised of data from Experian Marketing Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the ranking measured an adult's average number of alcoholic drinks per month in each metro area, as well as the percentage of residents who are classified as binge drinkers and heavy drinkers.

So how exactly did Boston score in all of this? According to the data:

The average number of alcoholic drinks consumed by the adult population in Boston per month is 15.6 drinks.

The percentage of Boston's population classified as binge drinkers is 20.1 percent.

The percentage of Boston's population classified as heavy drinkers is 7.4 percent.

It's worth noting that the CDC defines a binge drinker as someone who has “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcoholic concentration to 0.08 grams percent or above." They go on to explain that this will usually occur at 5+ drinks for men and about 4+ drinks for women, over the course of two hours.

For men, the CDC defines "heavy drinking" as consuming an average of over 2 drinks per day, and for women, over 1 drink per day.

In 2012, Boston also took a few other “best of” rankings, including the smartest city in North America, the best city in the country for recent college graduates, and the best city in the country for walking,

This program aired on January 4, 2013. The audio for this program is not available.

Headshot of Nate Goldman

Nate Goldman Social Media Producer
Nate Goldman was formerly a social media producer at WBUR.

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