In this episode of the How to Live in Denmark podcast, host Kay Xander Mellish shares observations from a recent visit to Danish high schools, noting that many schools have bars or cafés where students as young as 16 can legally purchase beer, cider, and alcopops. She discusses how drinking is embedded in youth culture, with a split between teens who binge on weekends and those who abstain, and highlights alarming public‑health data: about 30,000 Danish youths have drinking problems, only 2% receive treatment, and Denmark ranks highest in Europe for binge drinking, contributing to a shorter life expectancy. Mellish traces Denmark’s long alcohol tradition back to Viking brews and the historic practice of feeding infants ølbrol. She explains how alcohol functions as a social currency among adults—two bottles of red wine serve as informal gifts—and how heavy drinking is common even among highly educated Danes, often followed by planned hangovers. The host recounts a controversial interview where he suggested offering non‑alcoholic drinks at a traditional Christmas lunch to accommodate diverse guests, provoking a strong reaction from the host. Mellish clarifies that she is not a teetotaler, enjoys occasional wine and gin, and previously worked for Carlsberg, but advocates that drinking should be a personal choice rather than a cultural obligation. The episode concludes with a call to visit the podcast’s website, books, and social media channels.
Chapters
Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. Earlier this year, my daughter and I visited We visited several Danish high schools to help her decide where she'll continue her education. We looked at the classrooms and at the laboratories— my daughter likes science. We looked at the athletic fields and we looked at the bars. Yes, most of the high schools we visited had a bar or at least a café where they serve the students beer on tap, hard cider in cans, or alcopops in bottles when they want to relax after class. Now, high school students are usually 16 to 19 years old. And the legal purchase age for wine and beer in Denmark is 16, so it's all totally legal. It's just a bit surprising when you come from any place where teenagers are encouraged not to drink alcohol to find a bar conveniently located next to the school gym. Drinking plays a big role in young people's lives in Denmark. By age 14, my daughter's class had begun to split into those who got drunk on the weekends and those who didn't. Parents of the kids who drank alcohol didn't seem to mind. Ah, it's just part of having fun while they're young, one parent told me. I actually drank a lot more when I was younger, said another. That doesn't mean that alcohol use has no consequences. A new report says 30,000 young people in Denmark have a drinking problem, and only 2% of them are getting treatment for it. The Danish public health system is excellent for emergencies like broken bones and Serious illnesses like cancer, but it's less effective when it comes to long-term psychological and addiction issues. Early in 2020, the EU Commission reported that Denmark placed an unhappy first in Europe in binge drinking, and that it was one of the reasons Danes have the shortest expected lifespan in Western Europe. 37% of adult Danes said they had regular major alcohol usage, which was nearly double the EU average of 20%. Alcohol has a long history in Denmark. The Vikings brewed four types of alcoholic beverages: ale, mead, fruit wine, and sura, a fermented milk. And for many centuries, Danish babies have eaten ølbrol, which is a mix of old bread scraps and beer. Fast forward a few centuries, and alcohol is still part of almost every Danish gathering, although in many circles beer is less popular than wine. 2 bottles of good red wine is an informal currency in Denmark. It's what you give to the neighbor who checks in on your cat when you're on vacation. After the first bottle or so, nobody really notices if the wine is any good or not, and there is usually more than one bottle. Heavy, heavy drinking is deeply entrenched in Danish culture. Even highly educated adults often drink to get drunk and simply set aside the next day for a planned hangover. Now, what the Danes drink and how much they drink is their own business. It only affects internationals when people get offended when you don't want to drink along with them. I've done a lot of interviews in connection with my books and my speeches, but the only time I've really had a journalist go after me was in a conversation about alcohol. We were on a radio program discussing the traditional Danish Christmas lunch, and I suggested that to make the meal more hospitable to everyone, including Muslims, Jains, Mormons, pregnant women, and designated drivers, The host should make available some non-alcoholic beverages, like a Pepsi. A Pepsi? A Pepsi? He could not have been angrier if I had told him to feed his guests by throwing them fish from the back porch. You could not have Pepsi at a Christmas dinner, he said. If you absolutely insisted on not drinking alcohol, a non-alcoholic beer might do. Or dansk vand, the local vernacular for plain sparkling water. Sparkling water? How festive! At least that's better than the lukewarm water that was served at a recent business cocktail party I attended. The host had invited a number of Danish Muslims, many of them leaders in their fields, and provided nothing to drink but gløgg made of wine and brandy. These sharply dressed professionals had to walk around with sad little glasses of sparkle-free tap water. Good times. I've seen many Danish people grimace when I tell this story. I'm not sure if they're embarrassed at the host's rudeness or annoyed that the guests wouldn't just have some gløgg to be, you know, part of the fællesskab, part of the group. The truth is, I'm not a teetotaler myself. I like an occasional glass of red wine on a gray February evening or a crisp gin tonic on a hot summer day. I even used to work for Carlsberg at their headquarters where I helped them sell beer. My feeling is just that drinking alcohol should be a choice and not a requirement, and that the choice of how much to consume should be up to the individual. Some Danes— not all— seem to feel insulted when their guests don't drink or don't drink as much as they do. Perhaps they see it as a comment on their own behavior or an insult to Danish culture. But curried herring and repeated screenings of Olsenbaden movies are also part of Danish culture, and my failure to enjoy either one of them doesn't seem to bother anyone at all. Alcohol has a special and not particularly flattering place in the culture of contemporary Denmark. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. Come visit us at howtoliveindenmark.com or buy one of our books, which are available on Amazon, iBooks, And Google Play. You can go to our YouTube channel to see some of our speeches, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram at @HowToLivinDK. The 2 is a number. See you next time. See you next time.
