Jeffrey Gentry

The News Journal

George Thorogood's 1977 version of "One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer" is the perfect song for a native Delawarean like Thorogood to sing.

Consider the chorus:

"I wanna get drunk, I'm gonna make it real clear. I want one bourbon, one Scotch and one beer. One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer."

I guess for it to be the perfect song for a Delawarean, the title needs to be "A couple of bourbons, a Scotch or two and four, five, maybe even six beers."

It doesn't have the same bluesy rhythm and singalongness – is that even a word – but it is a heck of a lot more realistic.

Delaware likes its adult beverages.

In a recent report by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism on consumption of alcohol in the United States, Delaware ranked third among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in how much alcohol the average resident consumes each year.

That's right. Delawareans, on average, drink more alcohol per year – 3.59 gallons – than the residents of every other state except top-ranked New Hampshire (4.65 gallons) and No. 2 Washington, D.C. (3.89 gallons).

The states consuming the least alcohol were Utah – shocker – at 1.37 gallons, West Virginia at 1.81 gallons and Arkansas at 1.81 gallons.

You know darn well West Virginia didn't measure all the moonshine being sucked out of home stills.

The overall U.S. per capita consumption was 2.33 gallons in the report, which used numbers from 2012, the most recent year from which data was available.

Delaware's 3.59 gallon average is the highest the state has had since at least 1977. The number has risen steadily since 2008 when we were at 3.14 gallons. Most of the increase comes from higher consumption of spirits, the hard stuff.

Considering the economy has been in the tank since 2007-2008, I'd say we've been asking for directions to economic prosperity from a genie in a bottle of Jim Beam.

And she's lied to us so far.

Flat out lied.

Share in the Only in Delaware conversation 24/7 on delawareonline. Contact Jeffrey Gentry at jgentry@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeffreygentry