Oh, the horror! The Midwest--that vast stretch of land well-known for growing potatoes and loving Taylor Swift and getting monogamous at way too early an age (uhh, who puts a ring on it at 21? Or ever? Exactly!)--has sobered up to the single thing that will get them through President Obama's rule of leniency and increasing irrelevance: Booze!

According to this map (see fullsize version below), there are substantial parts of this crumbling union of ours where booze is more readily accessible than food. Now. We can chalk it up to any of these hypotheses:

● People in the Midwest are bored, so they obviously have to drink more to pass the time. ● People in the Midwest--where the job market is the worst--are depressed. So they obviously have to drink more to cope. ● The actual cost of a bottle of Lemon Georgi is less expensive than the cost of a day's worth of food. ● Beer is a vital part of the food pyramid, thereby making this entire food vs. groceries map all apropos of nothing.


There are apparently 1.52 bars for every 10,000 Americans. Curiously, this map, while representing areas where bars outnumber supermarkets, doesn't necessarily represent where people drink the most. This does.