Wine.com reports that orders are up 400 percent during stay-at-home orders, as bottoms up is the top activity in these shut in times.

You’d be forgiven for blacking out around sundown and not having even noticed yet that liquor stores across San Francisco are being forced to close at 8 p.m. every night now, according to KRON 4. Mayor Breed issued that order Friday, another of the expanded shelter in place orders now in effect until at least May 1. Any cursory scrolling of social media you’ve done in the last two weeks — and yes, it has only been 14 days since this started — will show you that drinking alcohol has become a preferred pastime in the age of COVID-19. We now have the data to back this “No sh*t, Sherlock” observation; on the heels of Eater National's report that alcohol sales are skyrocketing (“Three-liter boxed wine is up 53 percent”), the Chronicle follows up with a report that Wine.com is seeing a 400 percent increase in spirits sales, from which Eater highlights the conclusion that Bay Area residents are drinking 42 percent more alcohol whilst stuck home.

everyone in the world is wearing pajamas, getting wasted and shitposting online all day



what even makes me special anymore — Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) March 27, 2020

Yet the 42 percent figure may be a little skewed. That very specific information comes from a smartphone breathalyzer device called BACtrack, who’ve analyzed the blood alcohol content of their users who’ve employed the contraption in six Bay Area counties during shelter in place. In other words, these are people who already had personal breathalyzers prior to the lockdown orders. It’s my experience that the small number of people who own personal alcohol breathalyzers have these for, how do I put this diplomatically… a very specific reason. It’s fair to wonder if people who own breathalyzers may have different consumption patterns than the general public.

Day 16 of shelter in place:

Drinking fine wine and savoring articles about AirBnb hosts going belly up — Morgan Malus (@NeovaginalTeeth) March 28, 2020

Of course, it certainly helps our drinking patterns that so many SF bars are now delivering and serving to-go alcohol, since the state ABC recently blessed these spirit sales. While this has been available on the big delivery apps for awhile, it’s certainly preferable to support your favorite local bar instead of the ethically challenged app platforms.

Also, we have anecdotal reports that K&L Wine Merchant, the local wine and spirits retailer, saw its website crash over the weekend under the weight of some major ordering activity. K&L, it should be noted, is offering local deliveryd in its own vans, as well as delivery all over the Bay Area and beyond via Common Courier.

is drinking mid-day frowned upon during this shelter-in-place? — megatron (@rvptide) March 27, 2020

But while this is all fun and drinking games for many of us, Buzzfeed reports that the recovery community faces a huge challenge with in-person meetings cancelled, and massive server overloads making the online meetings choppy and unreliable. It’s bad enough that these people have to look through all of our boozebag social media posts, many of which I have thoughtlessly embedded in this article. But Business Insider brings us the absolutely heartbreaking story that online trolls are crashing recovery meetings held on the platform Zoom, and taunting and humiliating the people in recovery.

The Bay Area is drinking 42% more alcohol during Shelter in Place.https://t.co/4w2GOUMoPm pic.twitter.com/DY53XFcHk0 — Jason Maestas (@jasonmaestas) March 31, 2020

It’s important to remember that everyone is coping with this shelter in place thing differently, so even indulging in vices (other than online trolling!) might still be the most safe and sane way to keep composure through this unprecedented burden life has dealt us. If you hit the bottle to keep yourself content staying in and not flouting orders by congregating in public, you are doing the right thing and fighting the spread of the virus! So here’s to drowning our sorrows/boredom in the interest of public health, as SFist can in fact confirm that it is 5:00 p.m. somewhere.



Related: 11 Best Alcohol Delivery Services In SF [SFist]



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