I'd like to know that too. But for the record: "Alcohol Consumption per Capita" does not tell us HOW alcohol is consumed (I can drink 1-2 bottles of beer 7 days a week, or binge drink on weekends). To me "Binge Drinking" implies an aim towards delirium.
The evidence is personal experience. I'm not trying to publish a peer reviewed article, just convey personal experience that may be insightful to others as to why things appeal to people.
If you'd like to run a study to falsify my hypothesis you're welcome to, posting vaguely relevant stats is not such a falsification if you want to go all theory of knowledge on my statement.
It's the idea that to a large segment of the populace that when they turn the age of majority they should go consume large amounts of alcohol simply because their now "of age". Or that when they consume alcohol before the legal age they should consume as much as they can because they may not get the opportunity again in the near future.
Instead of looking at alcohol consumption per capita you'd probably want to look at alcohol poisoning per capita near the age of majority. (I have no idea what the stats on that actually are). In my personal experience not too many people consistently binge drink much past the legal age for drinking (because they discover it's actually quite boring).
I'll just point out that your chart, while relevant, doesn't necessarily disprove the original statement. Binge drinking is defined as a certain number of drinks in one night (four for women and five for men, I believe). It's possible that other countries drink more, but they spread it out, so they end up binge drinking less often.
Creating a banned books like is creating a reading list. Simply by making something illegal you give it appeal.
Once legal most people realize that whatever it is that was banned is actually pretty boring.