Pirate's Cove

Hey, they’re ruining everything else they can think of for Other People (never for themselves), might as well go for liquor

That’s the spirit: A guide to sustainable liquor

Questionable drunk texts aside, many of us believe that our occasional (or frequent, no judgment!) nightcap is basically harmless as long as we’re not doing something stupid or dangerous like operating a motor vehicle. Unfortunately, though, like pretty much everything else we do, what we imbibe has a direct and substantial impact on the environment. According to the June 2012 Research on the Carbon Footprint of Spirits report by the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER), a 750-milliliter bottle of liquor produces, on average, 6.30 pounds of CO2. That’s more than six giant exercise balls full of carbon dioxide for every bottle of whiskey, rum, vodka, gin, or tequila that you consume.

According to the BIER report (which specifically focused on the lifecycle of a North American whiskey but is meant to reflect a typical American spirit), distillation is the No. 1 contributor to a spirit’s carbon footprint, accounting for more than a third of its emissions. That’s largely because in addition to the energy required to power the process, distillation also creates a lot of waste in the form of spent mash, wastewater, and liquor-specific goop like tequila’s acidic pulp and rum’s fibrous leftovers, known as “mostos.” “The actual distillation itself,” says Dänny Ronen of DC Spirits, a food, wine, and spirits organization focused on efficiency and sustainability, “is a very, very wasteful, destructive process.”

So, what can you do? Drink sustainable and “carbon” friendly liquor!!!!!! Check the glass, the packaging, the labels, how it is made…

If you haven’t done your homework before you get to the store, do it once you’re there. “Most people have a smartphone on them,” Ehrmann astutely observes. “Pick up your phone and Google the company.”  But if doing homework at a liquor store sounds like a buzzkill (totally fair), then at least take the time to find a top-notch retailer, even if it means venturing farther than the one on your corner with the bulletproof glass. “The right store has the right people who actually know very, very well all the products they have in front of you,” Ronen says. So pre-party time, let the experts do the work.