Water & Vice: Producing Intoxicants in an Era of Extreme Drought

California is thirsty. The state is in its fourth year of a drought that is especially severe, by any measure. For instance, an April 1 snowpack measurement, a key indicator of surface-water supplies, was lower than any year on record, going back at least to 1950. Dry statistics aside, you can grasp the scope of the problem in an instant with the many before-and-after photos of California’s reservoirs and waterways. What were once tree-lined shores of large lakes are now high ridges overlooking swathes of exposed, dried lake bed and the muddy remnants of formerly flush basins. The land itself is thirsty.

If that’s enough to make you want a stiffer drink that mere tap water, you’re not alone: Californians consume a combined seven and a half gallons of and per adult each year, two drinks