Drinking in Japan

Alcohol is readily available here. Virtually every corner has a vending machine that dispenses a random selection of beer, whiskey, sake or various cocktails. There are no laws against drinking in public, so it was quite common to see people drinking sake or beer whenever we went out. And everything is quite inexpensive.

Despite this prevelance of alcohol, it would be very difficult to get drunk. Most of the beverages were about 4% alcohol. Some of the canned whiskeys-and-waters were about 9% (about the same as a good stout back home) but served in half cans. At the sake brewery, the strongest alcohol made by the company was the unpasturized sake, and it comes in at around 16-20%.

But most sakes were in the 4% to 9% range. Most Japanese will drink three or four small bottles of sake in an evening. Personally, I became rather fond of the whiskey-and-waters while I was here. One can of whiskey ran about 300 Yen, or 3 dollars Canadian (4 dollars American). I am going to miss those little canned-whiskeys when I get home.