Drunken \’Sconnies

The venerable Forbes.com has just released a ranking of the nations\’ \”drunkest\” cities.  To no one\’s surprise, number one is Milwaukee (or Milli-wah-kay, Algonquin for \”the good land\”).

This is hardly late breaking news to us Minnesotans who know that our bretheren to the east are known for drinking paint thinner on occassion (gotta have something to thin out the blood after all that cheese and sausage).But before we climb all the way up on our high horse here in Minnesota, we should take a glance at number two on the list… that\’s right, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

Oops! 

Well, that shouldn\’t come to any surprise to us either.  While we thumb our nose at the \”drunken \’sconnies\”, we do pretty well on the drinking thing here.  While our breweries never were as famous as those across the border (Hamm\’s, Stroh\’s, Schmidt\’s, Grain Belt, Schell\’s, the list goes on), we here in Minnesota have brewed our share of that sudsy amber beverage.

Next on the list is Columbus Ohio.  As someone who spend a few month in Columbus, I\’m not shocked by this either.  When you have a city as boring as Columbus, and pack it with tens of thousands of college kids at (The) Ohio State University, I\’m shocked that it wasn\’t ranked higher.

So how exactly did Forbes come up with these rankings?  Click here.  Can\’t say that I disagree with their methodology, although I\’m surprised that our laws in Minnesota are considered so lax.  Don\’t we get any bonus points for having bars close at 2AM (1AM in much of the state) and have a BAC limit of .08?

College towns dominate the list with Boston and Austin (TX) rounding out the top five.  Obviously Forbes didn\’t vising Austin Minnesota.

Click here for a slideshow of the top cities.