It seems these days that the country is hyper-polarized: rich vs. poor, Republicans vs. Democrats, liberals vs. conservatives, whiskey vs. vodka…wait, what? Yes, my fellow Americans. It seems we can’t even agree on what kind of liquor we drink, either. As The Washington Post shows in this handy infographic, Republicans overwhelmingly prefer dark liquors like whiskey, bourbon, scotch and rum. Democrats tend to prefer clear liquors and wines, though both sides seem to have a passion for our favorite grape-derived drink when it comes to high turnout voters.

Click image to enlarge.



For those of you reading the chart, you’ll note Franzia, boxed wine of choice on your average college campus, is on the right half of the chart. I’m no statistician (I was never very good with probabilities, unless it involved gambling), but I like to think that fraternity culture single-handedly pulled Franzia into the red on this one.

The most conservative drink on the chart that fell within reasonable turnout territory was Jim Beam, meaning there are probably a lot of bottles of ol’ Jim being tossed into dumpsters at Capital Hill after the holiday season, at least in and around the GOP’s offices.

The most liberal drink with a high report rate was Patron, leading me to believe that the Democrats are openly inviting naked three-day benders with their drinking habits. While I can get behind the sentiment (and potentially even the Senator, there are some MILFs on the Hill nowadays), blacked out and naked doesn’t seem to be a good way to run the country. That’s just my two cents, though. I suppose it couldn’t be any worse than what happens on the Hill now.

Whatever the case may be for the ideology associated with various liquors, I think we can all agree that we like to get drunk, from sea to shining sea. Maybe the Senate and House could use this as a starting point for some much needed bi-partisan reconciliation in 2014. A giant meet and greet mixer, with booze catering to both ideologies. I doubt they would do it, but we can dream, can’t we?

[via The Washington Post]

Image via 365 Things In Houston



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