Drinking habits in Croatia, Hungary and Ireland

Drinking habits in Croatia, Hungary and Ireland

According to the Forbes list of European countries based on alcohol consumption, my fellow Croats ranked as number one. However, what article did not mention are our daily coffee dates which keep us sharp between the occasional glasses of wine.  Surprisingly, the Irish were not that high up the on list even though the only liquids poured into a glass after 5pm on weekdays and 2pm on weekends are those of drafted stouts and ciders. Not to be too harsh, people of the emerald island also consume large quantities of breakfast tea. Differences in drinking culture between these two countries encouraged me to choose this particular topic for our brief ethnographic research and compare them to the drinking rituals of Budapestians.

            

        Due to Turkish influence, an average Croatian does not start his or her day without a cup of strong Turkish coffee. These coffee rituals are so strongly embedded in our culture that work places offer a half hour coffee break both before and after a lunch break.  In fact, Croatians love this dark beverage so much that we use a term coffee as a verb when meeting our friends for gossip chats. In Hungary, on the other hand, people do not seem to have a habit of sipping coffee every few hours. Here I mostly see young university students gulping cups of coffee in Starbucks while cramming for exams.  There is rarely a sight of people sitting down in a cafe and sipping their coffee while having a look at the daily papers.  Also, tea does not seem to be too popular with the people of Budapest. Only two out of ten people that I have asked about their tea drinking habits said they would maybe have a cup of tea a day. 

      

         However, boozing habits don’t seem to be too far off from those of alcoholic Croatians and Irish.  Middle aged people both in Hungary and Croatia seem to enjoy a shot of either palinka or rakija before their meals and a glass of wine after. Apart from this though, you will barely see any middle aged people out drinking which is hardly the case in Ireland. Both during the week and the weekend Irish pubs are full of middle aged men watching sports accompanied with the pint of Guinness. People who drink the most in Hungary seem to be youngsters from the age of sixteen up until those in their thirties.

 High school and university students are usually out about twice a week and probably get drunk at least one of those days. However, they do not seem to take particular interest in what and where they drink. I found that they don’t really like paying too much for their drinks so they either hang around cheap and nasty little bars or drink outside. As they mostly drink for the reason to get drunk, you hardly see them sipping on cocktails, but rather taking palinka shots or chugging draft beer. More often than not, you can also find Budapest teenagers sitting on a grass and sharing a bottle of wine.  Those who are a bit fancier and like dressing up on the weekends usually end up in one of the night clubs. Not surprisingly, younger generations in Croatia have quite similar habits regarding drinking outside. During the spring and summer most parks and beaches are full of high school and university students enjoying the nice whether with the bottle of wine in their hands. Nevertheless, I still find it that Croatians do hang out in nicer bars, as there is not that big of a difference in the price of drinks. Croatians would happily pay a bit more in order to mingle in the posher venues.

Still, neither Croatians nor Hungarians seem to have the same habit of going on a bender as the Irish. By bender I mean being heavily intoxicated for few days. If you are Irish and go out on a Friday night, especially in Budapest, there is a high chance that you will end up coming home on a Sunday night. Since Irish are (in)famous for their drinking habits, most bars and clubs in Ireland close at 3 am. Nonetheless, they found a way to deal with that problem by starting to neck (swallowing very fast) their drinks as early as possible.  When I say drinks I mostly mean pints of Guinness.  It is a rare sight in Ireland to see someone drink wine. Girls usually either drink beer or sip on mixed drinks.  Men obviously stick to heavy Irish stouts which they spice up with a bit of Irish whiskey in between the pints.  

All three cultures seem to have pretty different ways of handling their booze. Hungary and Croatia, however, appear to have some similar traits. We can pin that on Eastern Europeanness!