Folks From Wisconsin Probably Won’t Be Moving To Utah

I've never been to Wisconsin. About the closest I got was the north side of Chicago for a short period of my life. I had a friend who moved there a few years ago to a town north of Green Bay not far from the border with the upper peninsula of Michigan. He lasted exactly one winter.

Still, I wouldn't mind visiting Wisconsin one day. I wouldn't say that it is on my bucket list but if it happens it happens. We have some family members who have, in fact, moved to the upper peninsula of Michigan, so a trip through Wisconsin seems like it could be a possibility.

I don't know what I will see in the Badger State (although it probably won't be badgers – it seems they got that nickname from miners who were too poor to have homes so they ended up living in the mines during a harsh winter) other than one thing. Bars. Lots and lots of bars.

24-7 Wall Street just released a list of the “Drunkest Cities in America” and Wisconsin dominated the top twenty list by taking ten – half of the rankings.

The metrics 24-7 Wall Street used in putting this list together were these:

• Percentage of Adults Drinking to Excess
• Percentage of Driving Deaths Involving Alcohol
• Estimated Numbers of Bars and Restaurants With Bars
• Median Income

According to the Centers for Disease Control, Excessive drinking includes binge drinking which consists of four or more drinks in a single occasion for a woman and five or more drinks in a single occasion for a man (where's the equality?). It also includes heavy drinking defined as eight or more drinks per week for women and fifteen or more drinks in a week for a man (again, where is NOW on this?).

So, according to the parameters it's Green Bay, Wisconsin that ranks as the drunkest city on America. There, some 26.5% of adults engage in drinking to excess. And when your NFL team is the Packers, I can see why you would need a drink.

So what has this got to do with folks from Wisconsin avoiding Utah? In the same report 24-7 Wall Street listed the “Driest” Cities in America, and I'm guessing it won't take you very long to figure out...you're living in it.

In the top twenty “driest” cities, four of them were right here in the Beehive State.

In fact, southern Utah's St. George metro was the second driest city in the country where only 10.8% of adults are said to drink excessively.

I could tell you the driest city in America, and it is in Utah, but my question is “Y”? O.K. It's Provo, where adults drinking in excess is in single digits (8.5%)! Even Ogden made the list of driest cities, and if there is a place in Utah that would drive one to drink, I would think Ogden would be the place.

One last takeaway I had from reading this, if you want to go to the drinking capitol of the Western U.S. where do you think you would go? Los Angeles? Portland? San Francisco? Surely it's got to be Las Vegas? Nope.

The drunkest city out here in the western states is...Missoula, Montana. Maybe the Grizzlies are the Packers of college sports.