Just How Drunk is Neighboring Andover?

Photo Credit: Shawsheen Village Liquors, Andover, MA. Google Maps

By ADAM SWIFT (Patch Staff)

Andover?

Really?

Well, according to RoadSnacks, who recently ranked the drunkest cities in Massachusetts, Andover came in at #8.

Of course, RoadSnacks.net is a website that seems to revel in the negative, regularly ranking towns and cities as the worst places to live, the most redneck, and the most dangerous, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it has turned its attention to where people like to drink the most.

After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, RoadSnacks came up with this list as The Wicked Drunkest Cities in Massachusetts:

1. Plymouth
2. Scituate
3. Salem
4. Walpole
5. Adams
6. West Yarmouth
7. West Bridgewater
8. Andover
9. Hudson
10. Newburyport

What kind of scientific methods did RoadSnacks use to determine which cities and towns drink the most?

By the number of available places to buy booze, and by how often people are talking about drinking, according to the article’s author, plus, just for fun, the method included a look at each community’s divorce rate.

RoadSnacks on Andover:

“We got you pegged, Andover. Sure, you live in big fancy homes, and you have good salaries. You’re the type that ‘keeps it together’. You’re functional drinkers. A bottle of wine every other night, maybe some top shelf Glenlivet on the other nights. At least you’re letting your hair down with the rest of us. It would be so easy for you to just sip your champagne from home and talk about your stock portfolios all evening. Just don’t drink and trade. Always a bad idea.”

Population: 33,201
Divorce rate: 11%
Bars per capita: 18th in the state
Liquor stores per capita: 10th

If you’re curious enough, here are the least drunk places in Massachusetts, according to RoadSnacks. Or the most sober, if you will:

1. Amherst Center (Pop. 19,330)
2. North Amherst (Pop. 7,611)
3. Weston (Pop. 11,430)
4. Cochituate (Pop. 6,556)
5. Franklin (Pop. 31,760)