Fraters Libertas

No Longer The Big Cheese

A short story in Tuesday's Star Tribune reported that, by 2005, California will pass Wisconsin in cheese production. Wisconsinites will have to console themselves with the knowledge that, even if they lose the cheese race, they still will best California in the one area that really matters to the residents of the Badger State. Per capita alcohol consumption. Your average cheesehead can easily drink a Chablis swilling lightweight from California under the table without even working up a belch.

In fact Wisconsin residents are near the top of my list of best drinkers in the Upper Midwest, a region not noted for its temperance. Here's the breakdown from worst to first:

5. Iowa: Iowans aren't good at much really 'cept growing corn and wrasslin'. You would think that the utter lack of anything to do would help develop strong drinkers, but for some reason it just doesn't happen in Iowa.

4. South Dakota: Would be at the bottom of the list were it not for the presence of Iowa. South Dakotans are nice, moderate people. If your car breaks down on the side of the road you want a South Dakotan to stop and help you. If you need a fourth for a game of Mexican you'll not ask the guy from Sioux Falls.

3. North Dakota: It's cold, there is NOTHING to do, pass me a beer. North Dakotans can drink because they have to drink. If you lived there, you'd drink too. The only thing that mires them in third place is that until recently they had some really goofy laws on drinking (yes, even goofier than Minnesota!).

2. Minnesota: Your average Minnesotan can stand up drink for drink against most anyone in the country. But I have to admit that compared to our neighbors to the east we don't stack up. Blame it on the presence of a rich cultural community in Minneapolis/St. Paul or perhaps on the fact that the Vikings play in a dome. Whatever the cause, over the years the state has steadily lost ground to Wisconsin in the field of drinking.

1. Wisconsin: Yes they are near the top. Nearly everything in Wisconsin revolves around beer, the Packers, deer hunting, cheese, and brats, usually combined together in a spectacle of gross overindulgence. And the men are even worse.

But not so fast my cheesy headed friends. You're near the top, but not at it. But who then, you ask are the best drinkers in the Upper Midwest?

The mutants who hail from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or Yoopers as they're more commonly referred to. The U.P. technically belongs to Michigan but it ain't Michigan. And although it borders Wisconsin it ain't Wisconsin either. It's a strange place, whose culture melds elements of Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and pure North Woods looniness. I'd say it's something in the water but I don't think Yoopers drink water. Beer flows from their sinks Their babies are bottle fed beer or else they drink milk from their mother's breasts that might as well be beer given its alcohol content.

Maybe it's the eleven feet of snow the U.P. receives each winter, maybe it's the iron content in the ground, or maybe it's the fact that they're all related, but something up there creates an incomparable breeding ground for drinkers. Hell, even the most hard core Packer-loving, beer guzzling cheesehead will back away from the table when he finds out he's drinking with a Yooper. Sometimes it seems like they're not human. But damn can them Yoopers drink.