Distillers Country guides / Guyana
Guyana
A one-page guide to Guyana for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Georgetown
- Official languages
- English
- Currency
- Guyanese dollar (GYD)
- Time zone
- UTC-4 (GYT)
- Area
- 214,970 km²
People
- Population
- 835,986 (2025)
- Population growth
- 0.6% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 26.5%
- Aged under 15
- 28.9%
- Aged 65 and over
- 7.0%
- Life expectancy
- 70.3 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$27.1 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$32,414 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 19.34% (2025)
- Inflation
- 3.33% (2025)
Climate
Tropical, hot and humid, moderated by north-east trade winds on the coast. Two rainy seasons: May to mid-August and mid-November to mid-January.
Alcohol
- Alcohol is
- Legal
- Legal drinking age
- 18 off-premise; on-premise 16 for beer and wine, 18 for spirits (WHO 2018 country profile, status 2016: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profiles/substances-abuse/GUY.pdf)
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 6.04 litres of pure alcohol (2022)
- What people drink
- Beer 48%, spirits 51%, other 1% (2016)
- Traditional drinks
- Demerara rum
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Wikipedia - Guyana; Wikipedia - Demerara Distillers; Wikipedia - Banks DIH; WHO country profile GUY. Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.