Hungarians are the heaviest drinkers? They spent almost EUR 277m on shots!

According to index.hu, Hungarians bought spirits for almost 89 billion HUF (EUR 274m) between 2017 September and 2018 August. This means that they consumed 10 pc more strong drinks than one year before when they spent 80 billion HUF annually on them.

Bitters, vodka and palinka are the most popular

The most popular shots are the different types of spirit bitters which constitute 27 pc of the altogether consumption. On these, Hungarians spent more than 24 billion HUF (EUR 79m), which allowed them to buy 48 hectolitres of Becherovka, Hubertus, Jagermeister and Zwack Unicum. In fact,

gin produced the biggest increase;

people bought 44 pc more of this than a year before. Rum and whisky are also very popular, from these people consumed 21 and 17 pc more. In contrast, the amount of brandy and vermouth bought by Hungarians decreased by 3-3 pc. The second most popular shot in Hungary is vodka (24 pc) while the third place went to the Hungarian national beverage, palinka (17 pc). The fourth is whisky (13 pc), the fifth is liquor (7 pc) and only after these come brandy, rum, vermouth and gin.

As we have already reported, according to a recently published study about drinking trends in 36 European countries, Hungarians are the heaviest drinkers of the Old Continent. Moreover, the study analysed the drinking habits of 15-year-old Hungarian teenagers. Based on their results, both Hungarian girls and boys are still in the top 3 of their respective lists, with

Hungarian boys being in the absolute lead.

Interestingly, over 33 pc of Hungarian girls aged 15 have been drunk at least twice – making them 3rd on the list. The first is Denmark while the second is Wales in this respect. However, Hungarian boys are in the lead, with 41.2%. Lithuania, Croatia and Denmark follow close.

It is especially worrying that, according to a survey published last year, half of the Hungarian teens think that drunk driving is safe.

The 7th most alcohol-dependent country is Hungary in the EU

As we reported before, a Eurostat research found last year that Hungarians spent

521 billion HUF (1.66 billion EUR) on intoxicants in 2016.

This sum is higher than the money spent on shots because, in the latter, e.g. beer and wine are not calculated in. However, with this 521 billion HUF result, Hungary was the 7th most alcohol-dependent country in the EU. In fact, only Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Finland preceded Hungary.

According to the World Health Organization, alcoholic beverages are responsible for 5 pc of the deaths worldwide. Furthermore, in 2016, 2.3 million out of the 3 million deaths were men. The situation is even worse in the case of young people since 13.5 pc of them die because of alcohol. According to WHO’s expert Vladimir Poznyak, their research does not include teenagers under 15, even though other relevant data indicate that the rate of consumers among them is already high. Though alcohol consumption per capita is decreasing in Europe and North-America, the trend is the opposite in the developing countries.

Source: index.hu, Daily News Hungary