It’s not always the biggest cities and college towns that are getting ‘Florida drunk’ the most.

This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as info-tainment. Don’t freak out.

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Is there anything wrong with being called the drunkest city in your state?

Especially in Florida, which drinks the 13th most beer and spirits every year. It’s pretty clear that you all like to get your drink on just about every chance you can get up there in The Big Sunshine.

How do you decide how much a place drinks? By the number of available places to buy booze, and by how often people are talking about drinking, that’s how.

Plus, we thought why not add in a stereotype? Drinking is one reason for divorce, and something that divorced people do a lot of.

Using that criteria, it’s not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where partiers might live in Florida, and then put out a list.

Because, the data never lies, does it?

After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Drunkest Cities in Florida:

Key West Sarasota Miami Beach Pensacola Bradenton Panama City Fort Lauderdale New Smyrna Beach Daytona Beach Jacksonville Beach

As it turns out, many of these are coastal cities in Florida with many bars in town or nearby, where there’s a higher than average divorce rate. Studies have indicated that when one or both partners in a marriage are alcoholics, that couple is three times more likely to divorce.

Read on below to see where your town ranked.


What drunken criteria did we use?

In order to rank the drunkest cities in Florida, we had to determine what criteria defines someone who drinks a lot.

We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using Yelp and Sperling’s Best Places, this is the criteria we used:

Number of bars and pubs per capita

Number of wineries per capita

Number of liquor stores per capita

Each city’s drunk related tweets within the last week

Each city’s divorce rate

For geo-located tweets, we measured the following raw number of tweets that came from within a city’s general area: #Drunk, #Party, #Beer, #Wine and #Cocktails

Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a city’s border, as well as within a short driving distance.


1. Key West

Hog’s Breath Saloon, Key West, FL. From their Facebook page.

Population: 24,657

Divorce rate: 7th highest in Florida

Bars per capita: 1st in FL

Liquor stores per capita: 2nd

Based on the data and number of raw tweets coming from your location, per capita, it sounds like Key West is having a really, really good time.

We’re actually not that surprised that Key West was high on this list. The 17% divorce rate was a huge factor.

Key West has the most bars per capita, and the 2nd most liquor stores in the entire state.

2. Sarasota

The gang at JDub’s Brewing Company, Sarasota, FL. From their Facebook page

Population: 52,501

Divorce rate: 16.2%

Bars per capita: 3rd in FL

Liquor stores per capita: 3rd

No wonder there are so many heavy drinkers here; 1 in 7 people are divorcees and there’s simply a ton of places to drink, especially right there along Main Street.

3. Miami Beach

Wet Willie’s, Miami Beach, FL. Google Maps.

Population: 88,628

Divorce rate: 16.1%

Bars per capita: 4th in FL

Liquor stores per capita: 4th

Twitter was afire with mentions of drunk related commentary, as you can imagine. In fact, Miami Beach had the 4th highest number of drunk related comments. If people weren’t actively drinking and Tweeting, they were recalling drunk moments here, or wishing they were in Miami Beach with a cocktail.

The divorce rate is really high here as well.

4. Pensacola

Flora-Bama Lounge and Package, Pensacola, FL. Google Maps

Population: 52,246

Divorce rate: 15%

Bars per capita: 7th in the state

Liquor stores per capita: 6th in FL

There are a seemingly endless number of places to drink along Palafox Street in Pensacola. And the people here sure take advantage of it. There are also lots of corner liquor stores here for those who like to drink on the streets (or in the comfort of their home).

There were a higher than average number of drunk Tweets coming from Pensacola, including these gems:

“Middle age drunk dudes on Pensacola Beach”

And

“Did everyone in Pensacola get drunk last night wtf “

Yes, they most likely did, random Tweeter.

5. Bradenton

Motorworks Brewing, Bradenton, FL. Google Maps

Population: 50,141

Divorce rate: 15.7%

Bars per capita: 10th in the state

Liquor stores per capita: 9th

Bradenton’s city motto is, “The Friendly City.” Everyone is a lot more friendly and easy going when they’ve had lots to drink.

Bradenton is home to Tropicana, one of the largest makers of orange juice in the world. Therefore, we’re assuming there are tons of screwdrivers and fuzzy navels served from sun up to sun down.

6. Panama City

The Salty Goat Saloon, Panama City, FL. Google Maps

Population: 36,153

Divorce rate: 17.1%

Bars per capita: 7th in the state

Liquor stores per capita: 14th

Panama City has a huge divorce rate and a lot of bars in the area, per capita. There are also lots of other corner liquor stores per capita, though not as many as in other areas of the state.

7. Fort Lauderdale

Sandbar, Fort Lauderdale, FL. Google Maps

Population: 167,370

Divorce rate: 15.8%

Bars per capita: 12th in FL

Liquor stores per capita: 20th

Apparently Fort Lauderdale is no longer just for old people. Not that the elderly can’t throw back their share of gin and scotch. But it’s clear that there’s lots of drinking going on here when you look at the data.

Twitter backs that up. (Not that old people don’t Tweet). There were lots of mentions of being drunk in Fort Lauderdale, as well as several mentions of people going to kids birthday parties.

8. New Smyrna Beach

Beachside Tavern, New Smyrna Beach, FL. Google Maps

Population: 22,658

Divorce rate: 15%

Bars per capita: 15th in FL

Liquor stores per capita: 11th

Public service announcement: Stay out of the roads in New Smyrna Beach. There are lots of people drinking and driving at all hours of the day. According to Twitter.

This gem was a doozy:

“Apparently a woman in New Smyrna Beach was drunk driving while breastfeeding her baby with other kids in the car. #OnlyInFlorida”

Only in Florida, indeed.

9. Daytona Beach

Boot Hill Saloon, Daytona Beach, FL. Google Maps

Population: 61,779

Divorce rate: 14.7%

Bars per capita: 9th in the state

Liquor stores per capita: 19th

Is anyone really gonna doubt that Daytona Beach is a really drunk city? There are probably people wondering why DB didn’t rank higher. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Daytona Beach is the undisputed party capital for underage drinkers.

Surprisingly, there weren’t too many mentions of Daytona Beach partying on Twitter.

Except this goodie: “There’s drunk and then there’s Daytona drunk.”

10. Jacksonville Beach

Lynch’s Irish Pub, Jacksonville Beach, FL. Google Maps

Population: 21,470

Divorce rate: 14%

Drunk tweets per capita: 7th in the state

Liquor stores per capita: 11th in Florida

The sheer number of bars and liquor stores are most likely a distraction, and are certainly part of the reason the divorce rate is so high here.

But you know the saying. The divorce isn’t the tragedy. The tragedy is staying married.

There You Have It

If you’re measuring the locations in Florida where there are a high number of divorced people, bars and liquor stores, and where people are talking about drinking the most often, this is an accurate list.

And while you might think the larger cities and college towns are ‘more drunk’ than these places, when you measure the percentage of people who have access to alcohol, and who are separated, it makes sense. Cause, the data never lies, does it?

If you’re curious enough, here are the least drunk places in Florida. Or the most sober, if you will:

Keystone (Pop. 21,973) The Acreage (Pop. 38,683) Alafaya (Pop. 82,196) Four Corners (Pop. 27,264) Hunters Creek (Pop. 22,384)

We also wrote about the most redneck cities in Florida in case you didn’t read it. Click here to see that story.

City Divorce Rate Rank key_west 17.00% 1 sarasota 16.25% 2 miami_beach 16.17% 3 pensacola 15.02% 4 bradenton 15.73% 5 panama_city 17.01% 6 fort_lauderdale 15.80% 7 new_smyrna_beach 15.07% 8 daytona_beach 14.69% 9 jacksonville_beach 14.17% 10 orlando 13.04% 11 dunedin 17.17% 12 fort_myers 13.62% 13 venice 13.54% 14 tampa 13.46% 15 clearwater 15.50% 16 naples 11.97% 17 delray_beach 15.45% 18 west_palm_beach 14.08% 19 melbourne 16.86% 20 ormond_beach 13.84% 21 miami 13.56% 22 largo 17.49% 23 hollywood 14.84% 24 boca_raton 12.52% 25 leesburg 16.97% 26 tarpon_springs 14.67% 27 altamonte_springs 17.61% 27 holiday 14.68% 29 hallandale_beach 15.89% 30 jupiter 14.02% 31 lake_worth 13.49% 32 winter_park 10.40% 33 ocala 12.68% 34 lakeland 14.26% 35 deland 12.93% 36 oakland_park 14.39% 37 casselberry 15.50% 38 palm_harbor 14.29% 39 sebastian 15.94% 40 pompano_beach 14.17% 41 coral_gables 8.87% 42 sanford 13.06% 43 port_charlotte 14.41% 44 palm_beach_gardens 13.70% 45 boynton_beach 13.04% 46 kissimmee 12.89% 47 winter_haven 12.62% 48 merritt_island 14.64% 49 dania_beach 16.47% 50 st._petersburg 16.33% 51 gainesville 7.83% 52 winter_garden 11.67% 53 port_orange 13.13% 54 plant_city 12.97% 55 davie 13.39% 55 aventura 14.34% 57 deerfield_beach 14.69% 58 tallahassee 9.22% 59 pinellas_park 16.38% 60 margate 14.08% 61 sunny_isles_beach 15.05% 62 jacksonville 13.67% 63 titusville 13.52% 64 fort_pierce 11.67% 64 sunrise 12.84% 66 estero 6.75% 67 clermont 10.54% 68 crestview 11.30% 69 north_fort_myers 13.86% 70 doral 10.50% 71 oviedo 7.16% 72 bonita_springs 10.44% 73 rockledge 13.46% 74 brandon 12.70% 75 edgewater 14.50% 76 homestead 11.95% 77 cape_coral 12.57% 78 coconut_creek 13.60% 79 apopka 10.85% 80 temple_terrace 11.53% 81 wesley_chapel 9.96% 82 coral_springs 11.14% 83 lauderhill 13.27% 84 tamarac 15.68% 85 greenacres 13.90% 86 winter_springs 12.53% 86 royal_palm_beach 10.47% 88 lealman 20.65% 89 pembroke_pines 12.02% 90 north_miami_beach 9.89% 91 cooper_city 12.09% 92 spring_hill 11.96% 93 riverview 10.49% 94 ensley 16.10% 95 south_bradenton 19.85% 96 palm_bay 13.06% 97 egypt_lake-leto 16.52% 98 coral_terrace 15.46% 99 lake_magdalene 15.83% 100

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