Talk:Alcohol preferences in Europe/Archive 1

Proposed merger
I think it would be better to have a single article with a title such as Alcohol belts of Europe rather than the separate articles Wine belt, Beer belt and Vodka belt (which I think should be called Spirit belt anyway because I'm sure it's usually defined to include Scotland). At the moment the information in the three articles overlaps a lot, and the belts are better understood in the context of the others.

Any comments?

"unreferenced nonsense"
Isn't that whole point of the article? That vodka is consumed in these places because its ingredients are produced there? Am I missing something?--Pharos 17:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are missing the original phrase, which is so very false that I don't even want to discuss it. If someone provides a reference to support it, I will eat my beard as a snack to my next shot of "vodka" :-) `'mikka 19:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You know, I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I don't even have any idea why this would be controversial.  Can you please be a little clearer in explaining what's "unreferenced nonsense" in the sentence The region correlates with the growing region of vodka's traditional ingredients.  Thanks.--Pharos 02:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The article looks pretty well referenced to me.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 13:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Map...
One tiny little detail to nitpick here. Is there any particular reason that all the Nordic states are included in the definition but Iceland is specifically excluded from the accompanying map?

---anonuserwithnoparticularwaytoidentifyhimselfmorethoroughly —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.144.87.199 (talk) 17:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

Oh, and also Greenland... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.25.184.155 (talk) 10:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Armenia
Should Armenia be added to the list? It has one of the highest rate of vodka consumption the former USSR following Russia. http://www.armenianow.com/archive/2004/2002/august23/news/offmessage/index.htm --  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 17:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Should the map be remade, perhaps, and all countries where vodka is the most popular alcoholic drink added? Esn 07:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * This article mainly explains a term while specifying that there is no real definition. The current list of countries is derived from media references. Perhaps another section which lists countries where vodka is the most popular alcoholic beverage would provide more information while not confusing the reader about where the term came from. gbickford 21:10 28 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.48.167.243 (talk)

"See Also" Section
I have removed the "See Also" section from this page. The only links that it contained led to non-existent articles entitled "Beer Belt" and "Wine Belt." If someone would like to revive this category, then please make sure to include working links and articles.

(Kem78 06:40, 22 April 2007 (UTC))
 * And I restored them. If someone wants to vandalize articles, go somewhere which is not on my watch list. `'mikka 06:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Removing false information is not vandalism. There is no such thing as a "wine belt" or a "beer belt."  If you want to disprove me, then provide some citations and feel free to add them to the See Also section.  Otherwise, stop spreading false, unfounded information.   (Kem78 21:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC))


 * I did so. I hope BBC and The Economist are reliable enough. // Liftarn

The Polish Beer-Lovers' Party
An IP editor is removing sourced content with edit summaries that do not reflect Wikipedia's core principals (see and ). It's difficult to get a clear explanation in the limited scope of an edit summary so I wanted to expand here and see if we can collaborate to produce something that will improve the article.

The content that is removed is sourced and appears to represent a significant aspect of Polish culture (a party gaining seats in a representative election is not easily dismissed). So I think it really needs including. Is there a way to provide balance to the assertions? The edit summaries mention abstinence movements that are not currently included - is there a good source that shows they are significant? Or perhaps there is a well respected critic of the Polish Beer-Lovers' Party who's comments could give readers a broader perspective. -- SiobhanHansa 13:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You claim that: "The Polish Beer-Lovers' Party (which won 16 seats in the Sejm in 1991)" "in 1998, beer surpassed vodka as the most popular alcoholic drink in Poland". Both claims are true. But what you write in-between is untrue. Have yhou ever heard of "beer alcoholism" (better known with the German name "Bieralkoholismus")? Not only Russians claim that beer alcoloism is in no way better than vodka alcoholism. So you are wrong claiming that beer combat alcoholism.  You also claim wrongly that vodka consumption reduction is due to beer consumption increase. In Poland there are many (bigger or smaller) movements  working for soberty, just to mention Human Liberties Crusade  ( KWC in Polish) or Wedding of the Weddings. But also there are economic changes, like increased number of purchased cars (more drivers, less occasions), or increased poverty, that reduce alcohol consumption in general, and of not so cheap vodka in particular.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.135.36.35 (talk) 06:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Poland
Hi, may I ask why Poland in currently partially in vodka belt and partially in beer belt?.. Historically it used to be vodka country and now beer is more popular, but i wouldn't say that West of the country is beer and East is vodka... Regards, Barbara —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.241.131.43 (talk) 08:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't help but notice, that Poland is in three belts right now (beer, wine, vodka). 213.195.160.49 (talk) 20:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

exclusion of Denmark
It is a mistake that Denmark is not included in the Vodka Belt. Never mind the reference proposed, any one visiting Denmark would now that the local Vodka ('snaps'/'brændevin') plays exactly the same cultural role as in any of the other Nordic countries. Just read the following articles: Snaps Danish_cuisine What may be the case is that Danish taxes aimed to reduce the consuming of Vodka has been largely successful in promoting beer as the 'daily' alcohol. But since this is an article concerning a cultural praxis I think that Denmark needs to viewed as a part of the vodka belt, —Preceding unsigned comment added by DanielHensch (talk • contribs) 11:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure Denmark and Iceland are part of the beer belt. 92.76.98.42 (talk) 00:28, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

VODKA belt
Eliminate "Vodka belt" and replace it with "Spirit belt" for the countries indulging in brandy, fruit brandy, gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and whisky. In this classification falls most of Eastern Europe, South Germany, the Caucasus, parts of Iberia and parts of the British Isles. This definition splits the three main alcohol groups: fruits fermented, grains fermented and distilled.

Current split seems pointless and weird. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 00:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

What about an Arak Belt?
Shouldn’t the Arab countries in the map be marked as ‘arak countries’? Furthermore, Israel is not a predominantly wine country at all. Beer is very popular here, and the Russian immigration made vodka much more popular too. Also, shouldn’t Ireland (and I think some Arab countries) be marked as the ‘Whiskey Belt’? Siúnrá (talk) 12:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Other Belts
There is a smaller cider (alcoholic) belt which straddles the English Channel. Also perhaps a whiskey belt [reads above], but then that does degenerate into an article on national beverages. (is Greece a wine or ouzo (spirit) belt country, Italy wine, grappa, limoncello country)
 * A definitely important one is the apple wine belt where Cider, Cidre and Apfelwein are brewed. It stretches from Southern England via Normandy in France, parts of Switzerland and Austria, to the middle part of Germany (especially Hesse) which traditionally separates the beer from the wine belt in the last one. This belt is no modern invention but centuries old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:45:4904:DF00:A1C0:CDAF:1013:9A51 (talk) 21:16, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Luxemburg traditionally belongs in that belt, too. The apple wine belt officially is the separator between the wine belt and the beer belt. Approximately, this belt is also the divider between the Korn (wheat and rye brandy) belt in the North and the fruit brandy belt in the South. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:45:4904:DF35:F56D:A6BA:1F72:8B6E (talk) 09:41, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

European Garlic Divide
A similar concept divides Europe into regions which traditionally separate into those (northern) nations whose cuisine didn't use much garlic, with those (more southerly) that did/do.

Original research
I've a good mind to nominate this article for deletion, as it consists of near-pure original research. The word "belt" can be informally applied to lots of things arranged in a narrow geographical rectangle, Bible belt being probably the best known, but the idea that each type of alcoholic beverage has a "belt", and that these can be defined encyclopedically, seems a little absurd. Unless this can be reformed into a sourced article such as Consumption of alcoholic beverages in Europe - which I still don't think would be especially useful - it should go. Pro hib it O ni o ns (T) 09:26, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think this is just a subset of a widely-known phenomenon for which we need an article: the influence of climate on cuisine. I think climate and cuisine is a good title.  There are good reasons why the Irish eat more potatoes that rice, and the that spicy curries are used in traditional Indian cuisines but not in Scandinavia. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 22:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * This kind of non sense article belong to Uncyclopedia, not Wikipedia.173.246.1.70 (talk) 19:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that this article is close to nonsense. Different historic alcohol traditions of different cultures and areas are a real phenomena, but these definitions of belts are ahistorical. Real historic distributions of types of alcohol overlap strongly. For example, Nordic countries, Baltic countries and Poland, are true beer countries with later adoption of vodka. Vodka did not displace beer, and now people of those countries drink both beer and vodka. Therefore those countries should be in both belts. Tuohirulla puhu 07:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Baltic States
I just noticed I've apparently accidentaly deleted half of my edit summary explaining why I requested source for Baltic States being in vodka belt. Some time ago I worked on Latvian cuisine and acctualy found a source showing that most popular drink is beer (67% of all alcoholic Beverages sold compared to vodka being only 9%), and being Latvian my self I feel it's also more important in our culture, sure people drink vodka as well, but it's not much of a cultural thing as it seems to be for Russians, and I've never heard that our other neighbours would have a thing for vodka. I also noticed now that article mentions that the concept first appeared when Soviet Union still existed, so there's an obvious way to make an error - mehanically transfering that notion to all post-Soviet countries. However the criteria for inclusion seems pretty vague, there's manufacturing mentioned and stuff, so I left this alone for now to see, if anyone can acctualy come up with a source how each of the Baltic States qualifies (preferably one that doesn't mention other countries as in that case it again may be that it was assumed by author due to some other connection) Xil  (talk) 08:41, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I have a strong temptation to delete half of this article altogether. These "belts" are informal concepts, and nearly everything written here is originale research. It is on my To-Do list, to delete everything unreferenced and everything referenced from sources which do not discuss the "alcohol belt" concept, which term, by the way a 100% wikipedian's neologism.  - üser:Altenmann >t 02:26, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I know that it would be technically correct thing to do, but seems to me that if you use only sources mentioning the term, especially, if it indeed is invention of a Wikipedian, you might be then be left with few vague sources generalizing about wast regions without carefully checking facts and sources actually based on information in this article. Perhaps a better idea would be to define what an alcohol belt is exactly, so sources that don't use the term, but show that the country meats criteria for inclusion can also be used - e.g. to me at least it appears that it's about what drink is culturally most important, so sources saying that certain drink is culturally important in certain country could also be used even, if they don't say that the country is part of certain alcohol belt. Right now the lead talks about "association", which IMO can mean anything from that alcohol being popular to manufacturing large amounts of particular alcohol for export Xil  (talk) 15:59, 10 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Another problem with this article is that it uses countries as the unit of analysis. Besides the cider regions within France, there are also significant areas in Germany (Ruhr and Rhine valleys) which are associated with wine rather than beer. --Macrakis (talk) 10:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, the major problem with this article is WP:OR. If editors are having to cherry pick their way through sources in order to create the article they want, then WP:SYNTH is the least of its worries. In other words, if deleting half of the article is understood as being the technically the correct thing to do, it means that it's the correct thing to do for Wikipedia as an 'encyclopaedic resource'. Ultimately, making stuff up to make something out of a neologism is one heck of a testament to WP:OSE... and we're not obliged to treat it as anything other than OTHERSTUFF. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2016 (UTC)