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(Click for larger version.)
This map of the alcohol belts of Europe got written up on Strange Maps recently. It divides Europe into distilled spirits (blue), beer (gold), and wine (red).

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I couldn't tell from the Strange Maps write-up whether those belts were based on where which alcohol was produced, where the most was sold? consumed? exported? There must be more info, but I wasn't finding any of the data or back-story to the classifications.

I think it's more cultural, as in "what is consumed" and "where is there a culture of ____". There's another version linked in the Strange Maps article.

The wikipedia article on the alcohol belts I linked to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_belts_of_Europe) has citations which may have data.

I bet there's a *huge* overlap between "what is produced" and "what is consumed"

Interesting.. It seems to roughly correlate to cool, colder, and fuck-its-cold climates.

Hah! Funny.

I think it's basically right, though I would love to see overlapping shading on this thing, because my mother's family's town is sort of in a half beer half spirits part of eastern Slovakia. I think that would be really awesome....

Oh, that's on one of the other linked maps on the Strange Maps page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alcohol_belt.PNG

They don't think that's completely accurate, either.

Yeah, that one doesn't represent all the Becherovka drunk in my part of Slovakia, and hell, Becherovka is made all the way over by the German border edge of Czech Republic, in Karlovy Vary!

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Teriakovce. (Via Crabtree PA, via Champion OH, via various rural locations in Ohio.)

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Cool! What surname, if you don't mind my asking? Ours is Hovanic.

Why, gosh, it almost looks like that might have something to do with latitude...

As a matter of fact, the wikipedia article says:

The southern boundary of the "vodka belt" roughly corresponds to -2 C January isotherm.

Those wacky wikipedians. :)

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Or at least modern growing zones; in the early Middle Ages, France put tariffs on English wine because it was so pkentiful and cheap.

Then things got colder. But who knows what it will be like in 2100?

The Strange Maps post agrees with you:

"These maps bring to mind Terry Pratchett’s witty remark that Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it. And grapes, grain and potatoes."

:)

Just seeing that picture made me really want to play an old-school turn-based wargame.

Diplomacy will always be one's friend.

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