I’ve just got back from a road trip in Wisconsin. The upper midwest is not an obvious destination for a spring break, certainly not in early April. As my plane circled above Milwaukee, the brown and leafless landscape warned me I’d travelled back in time to midwinter.
It was too cold to brave the beaches – the Lake Michigan shore was covered in snow and ice – but the bars at least were convivial. This is often the case in Wisconsin, the state with the highest alcohol consumption per capita. Many of my fellow drinkers were keen to point out that they were responsible for nearly all the brandy sold in the US (as a collective, not individually).
