While reading through Cracked's thoroughly-researched debunkment (not sure if that's a word, but let's keep going here) of various national stereotypes (the Poles aren't actually stupid, the Brits don't actually have bad teeth, the French aren't actually cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and Japanese men don't actually have... erm... you'll have to read the article), I came across a link to a list of countries ranked by alcohol consumption.
(Boy, that's a lot of brackets.)
So it turns out (according to the World Health Organisation, at any rate) that the dry countries like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran don't touch the devil's water. (At least, that's what they're telling their parents.) But who's on top of the list? Which nation is the beer-swillingest, wine-tastingest, ale-swiggingest nation of all?
You say Ireland, with its whiskey and its Guiness. The stats say "No, sir."
You say Germany, with its beerfest. Again, you're wrong.
You say Czech Republic, UK, France, Italy, with their pilsens, pubs and wine farms? Again, you are sadly mistaken.
So who, with an annual average of 15.6 litres of booze consumed per capita in 2003, is the drunkest nation on Earth?
You may be surprised.