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Let's for a moment, get off how bad we have it in tax burden here in Minnesota. It makes a man want to drink. Instead, let's focus on exactly that—we rate #1 in binge drinking, that is, if you look at us as a region. The top 4 in the country are all joined by Minnesota borders. And although, Minnesota is not #1, we are flanked on all 3 sides with other champs of grain guzzlin'. Who wants to take a wild guess that our friends on our northern border is also in the same league. Why?  I'll hazard a guess it may be a lot to do with natural resources. All 4 of us are in one big chunk of the northern grain belt. It just figures, we have the grain, we make the beer, we drink it. You could also make a possible case for the high percentage of Nordic and Germanic ethnic make up of the region.
Now, clocking in at #5 are the Rhode Islanders, I'm guessing they're just angry with that whole Napoleanic complex. Let's keep in mind that what passes for binge drinking today could not hold a candle to early American booze consumption. You can find many a romantic retelling of bending the elbow. Here's one from Winethur museum: Alcohol undoubtedly played a significant role in the daily lives of colonists. Numerous reasons existed to justify the colonists' drinking habits: a fear of a polluted water supply, a belief in alcohol's nourishing and medicinal properties, and its role in warming them in a cold climate. Drinks served at mealtimes made steady drinkers out of everyone, even children. Workers and farmers took breaks in the workday for their dram to relieve tedium and ease physical pain. Social and political events, such as weddings, funerals, and elections, invariably had alcohol on hand. However, for all the alcohol consumed, drinking was a family- and community-oriented activity. The first settlers brought with them the Anglo tradition of beer drinking, and local production was soon needed to meet the demand. With the increasing number of taverns in colonial America, demand for beer outstripped the supply from home brewing and importation from England. Commercial breweries quickly sprung up in the larger cities to quench the colonists' thirst. As these settlers adapted to their new world, so did their drinking habits. Many spirits made at home used local ingredients, such as hard cider in the North and peach brandy in the South. With the rise in distilling at the start of the 18th century, rum became an important trading and economic product for the colonies until embargoes after the Revolution affected rum trading. The opening of the frontier in the early republic provided more acres of land for the growing of grain, and whisky was easily distilled. Besides being a cheap and plentiful commodity, whiskey was also easier to transport than grain. And another from Goliath peppered with unintended humor. Crooking the elbow was a serious occupation in eighteenth-century America. Visitors to the early republic often expressed astonishment at the amount of spirits that Americans knocked back during an ordinary day. People of the time believed that guzzling plain unadulterated water was unhealthy (as it sometimes was before the days of water treatment plants). They regarded liquor as nourishment. Then, as now, people also used it for medicinal purposes. A popular euphemism was antifogmatic, a drink taken on the pretext that it counteracted the bad effects of foggy weather.
Although drunkenness was frowned on, moderate alcohol intake was a normal part of meals. What Americans considered moderate in the late 1700s amounted to an annual per capita consumption of nearly four gallons of hard liquor, well over twice the amount that modern Americans consume. They also found room for many tankards of hard cider and one-percent beer, and if they were wealthy a certain amount of wine. Antifogmatic. That's goin' in the act. Yes, we're mere pikers compared to our forefathers, but still, we're #1!
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