Booze News: Chimps Are Naturally Getting Tipsy, Study Finds

Two words: Drunk monkeys. A great band name, but more importantly, the topic of today’s Booze News!

A new study finds a whole new meaning behind “monkeying around.”

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley put science to the test and discovered that wild chimpanzees ingest approximately two alcoholic drinks daily. UC Berkeley graduate student Aleksey Maro said chimps consume ethanol daily from ripe fruits that have undergone natural fermentation, a process where sugars convert into alcohol.

“Across all sites, male and female chimpanzees are consuming about 14 grams of pure ethanol per day in their diet, which is the equivalent to one standard American drink. When you adjust for body mass, because chimps weigh about 40 kilos versus a typical human at 70 kilos, it goes up to nearly two drinks.”

The study clarifies that the chips are unlikely to be actually intoxicated since it’s a low-level dose ingested over time instead of a binge (the way most humans prefer it.)

Apparently, their research proved their “drunken monkey hypothesis,” suggesting that human attraction to alcohol has evolutionary roots. All we know is that if nature is okay with taking the edge off once in a while, so are we. Cheers!