The overall purpose of this study was to explore the alcohol consumption patterns of adolescents by beverage type. A total of 705 primarily 9th grade students were recruited to participate in this study in the spring of 2002. Alcoholic beverage use differed significantly across gender and ethnicity on a number of beverage-specific drinking measures, including initiation, quantity and frequency, binge drinking, chugging, and alcohol problems (p's[less than]0.05). Stepwise discriminant analyses indicated that drug use and social beliefs were notably important in discriminating adolescent drinkers from non-drinkers of specific alcoholic beverages. This study's results indicate the need for testing interventions tailored to alcohol consumption patterns including beverage type.