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Back in 2000, we confirmed that the Czechs sure love their pilsner. They better -- they invented the golden brew. And according to one calculator, they're still tossing back a steady stream of brewskis in Praha and environs. But who's at the other end of the hoppy spectrum? Our research bubbled up a fair number of dry candidates. The most obvious are places that just don't drink at all--at least, officially. Believe it or not, a few lucky countries never suffer from hangovers. These are primarily Muslim nations, because the Islamic Holy Scripture, the Qur'an, prohibits all intoxicants. The World Health Organization's 2004 Global Status Report on Alcohol (PDF) found that the only countries with a total recorded alcohol per capita consumption of 0 liters of alcohol were Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Bangladesh. A quick check of the CIA World Factbook confirmed that Islam is the main, if not only, religion in each of these countries. OK, maybe that was too easy. What about countries that drink beer, but just not as much? The same World Health Organization report also listed the top 20 countries by beverage-specific per capita consumption.
Number one was, again, the Czech Republic at 9.43 liters of beer per adult. At the bottom was Gabon with 4.77 liters of beer per adult. So, the Czechs drink the Gabonese under the table by almost double.
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