They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Oversized Wine Glasses!

Ah, alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. You do so much for us, and yet, you're so bad for us. 

It is an unfortunate truth that, for as great as a nice bottle of beer is, alcohol is a public health nightmare. Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease across the world, responsible for upward of 3 million deaths a year. The battle between alcohol and no-fun "there is no safe level of alcohol consumption" public health experts is never ending, but now, thanks to a new study, the doctors have a new weapon in their arsenal.

The premise of the study, conducted in England – a place where you quite literally can't take a step without stumbling into a pub – was simple: How is alcohol consumption affected when pubs stop offering their largest size of wine glass? 

For 4 weeks, a group of 20 pubs simply stopped offering their largest wine glass – 250 mL in all but three cases. And this intervention did indeed result in a small but noticeable 7.6% reduction in daily wine consumption. More importantly, beer and spirits sales showed no noticeable increase, daily revenues were not affected, and just four of the establishments included in the intervention received complaints about the missing wine glass.  

So, what does this mean overall? Well, for one, the researchers said that people who frequent drinking establishments generally limit themselves to a specific number of alcoholic units. Which makes sense, if you have to drive home, you can only drink one or two beers or glasses of wine. The size is a secondary concern; if bars offer smaller sizes and people drink the same number of drinks, quite naturally the amount of alcohol consumed is reduced. Your liver is happy, the bartenders are happy, the doctors are happy, everyone wins. 

There is, however, just one problem with this study. Sure, the English didn't complain much, but they have their whole stiff upper lip thing going on. Try this study again in Scotland and we'll see how they take it. The headline practically writes itself: "Wine consumption in Scotland down, scotch consumption up 500%."