What is the most environmentally-friendly alcoholic beverage?

December 3, 2007 3:33 PM

What are the relative environmental impacts of procuring a *single serving* of wine, liquor, or beer?

I'm thinking of factors like growing crops, brewing & distilling, packaging, but are there others? Does shipping trump all of these? Draught vs. bottles? Cans vs. bottles? Wine in a bag?

I also know that specific microbreweries (and micro-liquories?) are eco-friendly, but if I'm just at a random bar or grocery store, then what would be the most responsible choice?

posted by unknowncommand to food & drink (16 comments total)

(If location matters, then NYC)
posted by unknowncommand at 3:37 PM on December 3, 2007

Quick question: is this one serving from a keg/bottle, or one serving from a can/grown-up-juice-box?
posted by mdonley at 3:38 PM on December 3, 2007

For "most responsible" you'd have to crunch the actual numbers involved in the entire production chain.
posted by rhizome at 3:46 PM on December 3, 2007

I also know that specific microbreweries (and micro-liquories?) are eco-friendly, but if I'm just at a random bar or grocery store, then what would be the most responsible choice?

A beer or wine that had to travel the least distance from source to store would be the most responsible choice. All the beer and wine I drink is produced within a 100 miles of where I live. I consider other beer/wines a rare treat. But then I live in northern Cali where it's not difficult to get local booze.

This blog post explains the carbon footprint of wine.
posted by special-k at 3:47 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

Interesting question. I know little about the subject, but I'll offer what I can.

First, common sense would suggest to me that draught beer vs. bottled would be more "green". Sure, the bottles can be recycled, which is good, but it still takes a lot more resources to recycle dozens and dozens of bottles vs. one keg.

Next, a google search for organic beer shows that anheuser-busch and miller both have organic beers now, which I'm guessing would be a bit easier to find than your favorite microbrew.

I don't know about any specific eco-friendly breweries, but as with any other food product, buying local can have less of a footprint, largely in terms of resources used for transportation. So you could try to find out a few popular local breweries that are local, and use local ingredients.

Couldn't really tell you about wines. And I suppose since hard liquors give you more mileage, so to speak, that obviously helps reduce their impact as far as resources used to recycle the bottles vs # of drinks you get from a bottle. But I'm wondering how much that is offset by the resources put into distilling.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 3:49 PM on December 3, 2007

Also I don't get why you're so concerned about single servings. It's not like the bar tosses out the rest of the wine. Other patrons will also order wine by the glass. As for beer, you might consider ordering draught beer so there is a lot less packaging involved.

Does shipping trump all of these?

I think so.

Wine in a bag?

For the love of whatever you cherish most, NO.
posted by special-k at 3:51 PM on December 3, 2007

this question is unanswerable unless you make it more specific. what type of beer are you drinking? where the grains/hops imported from another country?

where were the grapes grown in the wine you are drinking? etc.

the answer, as has already pointed out, is going to boil down to "A beer or wine that had to travel the least distance from source to store would be the most responsible choice". i would add as a note of clarification this includes the ingredients of the beverage as well.
posted by phil at 3:53 PM on December 3, 2007

PS: The summary of the blog post is that you're being more env. friendly ordering wine produced in France than Napa. Container ships from France to Baltimore require less energy than trucking wine from Napa to NY.
posted by special-k at 3:55 PM on December 3, 2007

The "organic" beer brewed by the big breweries is questionably organic at best. As with this Consumerist editor, I've grown utterly skeptical of anything labeled as "organic" or "sustainable."

If you're really concerned with the environmental impact of booze, it's almost certainly true that the shipping is going to outweigh almost any other aspect of production. If you're just at some random bar/grocery stuff, get the stuff that's as local as possible.
posted by Nelsormensch at 4:01 PM on December 3, 2007

For the locality of the brewery, if not the ingredients:

Most Brooklyn Brewery beer is actually contract brewed far upstate, I believe. Good beer, though.

Heartland Brewery advertises themselves as a brewpub, so they ought to be brewing on-site. Never been, can't vouch for it.

Sixpoint Craft Ales is making serious craft beer in Brooklyn. Their beers are very delicious but they are for beer drinkers.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:04 PM on December 3, 2007

The cheapest vodka you can find. Liquor, because it can be bottled after export, rather than before. Vodka, because the ingredients are extremely common and can be grown with minimal effort. Cheap, because there is less profit to spend on really environmentally unfriendly things. Can you imagine the Ferraris and vacations that the guys who run Grey Goose take?
posted by smackfu at 4:55 PM on December 3, 2007

special-k, I asked about single servings, because there are more servings in a bottle of bourbon than in a bottle of wine. So perhaps it is more efficient as far as packaging? But I don't know whether that weighs out other costs.
posted by unknowncommand at 5:00 PM on December 3, 2007

unknowncommand: Oh ok. I was just thinking about beer/wine.
gauchodaspampas seems to have covered spirits:
"And I suppose since hard liquors give you more mileage, so to speak, that obviously helps reduce their impact as far as resources used to recycle the bottles vs # of drinks you get from a bottle."
posted by special-k at 5:09 PM on December 3, 2007

Regarding transportation costs and carbon footprints, economists Mike Munger and Russ Roberts touch on this issue at the 12:06 mark of their podcast (see the shownotes). Basically, modern transportation of goods is extremely efficient, and the unit costs are basically trivial.

Really, the cheapest booze you can find is probably going to be close to being the most "environmentally friendly", as it (by definition) has the lowest resource costs.

For that matter, you can scrape together the stuff other people throw away and make prison booze.
posted by chengjih at 5:26 PM on December 3, 2007

Basically, modern transportation of goods is extremely efficient, and the unit costs are basically trivial.

True, but the cost of polluting is not born by the transporter, it's an externality that comes out of everyone's pocket.
posted by electroboy at 6:40 AM on December 4, 2007

mdonley, I had wondered about the juice boxes as well. I know they had that big recycle effort a while ago.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:09 AM on December 4, 2007