For a series of 568 married men who died of coronary heart disease and an equal number of matched control subjects, information was collected on a large number of variables, including daily alcohol consumption classified by type of beverage, namely, beer, wine, or liquor. Daily consumption of small to moderate amounts of alcohol (2 oz [59.2 mL] or less daily) was inversely related to coronary death. This inverse relation was present in both crude and adjusted matched-pair analyses and was similar for each type of alcohol, as indicated by adjusted relative risks of 0.3 for beer, 0.3 for wine, and 0.2 for liquor. In contrast, for heavy drinking, there was no association with coronary death in either crude or adjusted analyses.
(JAMA 242:1973-1974, 1979)