page_title: Drinking culture
section_title: Speed drinking
hierarchical_section_title: Drinking culture / Speed drinking
caption_attribution_description: English: Steven Petrosino during his successful June 1977 Guinness World record attempt at the Gingerbreadman Pub in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He established records for 0.25 l (0.137 s), and for 0.5 l (0.4 s), but Guinness published only the record for 1 litre.
context_page_description: Drinking culture is the set of traditions and social behaviors that surround the consumption of beverages containing ethanol as a recreational drug and social lubricant. Although alcoholic beverages and social attitudes toward drinking vary around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the processes of brewing beer, fermenting wine and distilling spirits.
  Alcohol and its effects have been present in societies throughout history. Drinking is documented in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, in the Qur'an, in art history, in Greek and Roman literature as old as Homer and in Confucius's Analects.
context_section_description: Speed drinking or competitive drinking is the drinking of a small or moderate quantity of beer in the shortest period of time, without an intention of getting heavily intoxicated. Unlike binge drinking, its focus is on competition or the establishment of a record. Speed drinkers typically drink a light beer, such as lager, and they allow it to warm and lose its carbonation to shorten the drinking time.
  Guinness World Records (1990 edition, p. 464) listed several records for speed drinking. Among these were:
  Peter G. Dowdeswell (born 1940) of Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, England, drank 2 litres (3.5 imp pt; 68 US fl oz) in 6 seconds on February 7, 1975.
  Steven Petrosino (born 1951) of New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, US, drank 1 litre (34 US fl oz) in 1.3 seconds on June 22, 1977, at the Gingerbread Man Pub in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
  Neither of these records had been defeated when Guinness World Records banned all alcohol-related records from their book in 1991.
  Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke held a record for the fastest consumption of a yard of ale. He drank 2 ¹⁄₂ imperial pints (1.4 litres) in 12 seconds.
caption: Steven Petrosino achieving the Guinness World Record for speed drinking in June 1977 at the Gingerbreadman Pub in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
exif: {}