Wild chimpanzees in Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire eat 10 pounds of fruit daily, including sweet, soft, and boozy fruits like figs and plums. Researchers found that these fruits contain about .3% alcohol by weight, which translates to around 14 grams of ethanol per day, equivalent to two cocktails for a human. Chimpanzees don’t get drunk from this small dose, but rather experience a “quiet buzz” from nature’s fermentation process. This study provides the first direct measurements of ethanol in wild chimp fruit and sheds light on how our attraction to alcohol may come from ancestral fruit-eating habits.
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Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chimpanzees-alcohol-cocktails-fruit-research