Korean drinks 63 liters of alcohol yearly

Koreans each drank an average of 63 liters of alcohol last year. The alcohol consumption per Korean amounted to 52 bottles of soju, white distilled liquor, and 81 bottles of beer.

According to statistics compiled by the Korea Alcohol and Liquor Industry Association and the National Statistical Office, total domestic sales of the top four alcoholic beverages beer, soju, makkolli (raw rice wine), and whiskey came to 2,912,004,000 liters last year. Considering Korea's total population is 46.125 million, the average liquor consumption amounted to 63.1 liters per person.

By type of alcoholic beverage, per capita soju consumption came to 52 bottles (Based on 360 ml per bottle) in 2000, a decrease of 12 bottles from 64 in 1999, and the comparable figure for makkolli was 4.9 bottles (750ml), a slight drop from 5.2 the previous year.

Per capita beer (500ml) consumption increased by 9 bottles from 72 in 1999 to 81 in 2000, and whisky (750ml) consumption nearly doubled from 0.37 bottle in 1999 to 0.67 bottle in 2000. As a whole, liquor consumption in 2000 decreased slightly compared to the 2,925,798,000 liters recorded in 1999.

Park Joong-Hyun sanjuck@donga.com