Considerable population health research suggests that alcohol may have beneficial effects on physical health and mortality rates. This “healthy-dose” finding persists when controlling for potential confounds (e.g., age, gender, income). We explored the degree to which economic living standards further contribute to our understandings of how alcoholic beverages affect health.Design and Methods: A secondary cross-sectional analysis of existing data on a subsample of 814 face-to-face interview participants (aged 52-86) from the New Zealand Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NZLSA). Physical health was measured with the SF- 12v2. Other measures included alcohol consumption behaviours (measured with the AUDIT-C), the Economic Living Standard Index (ELSI) Short Form, and demographic information.Results: A hierarchical regression model initially replicated the effect found in previous research at Step 1 (R2 = .10); the number of daily drinks positively predicted physical health (B = 0.86, ± 0.79) when controlling for gender, age, smoking, mental health, education, and income. However, at Step 2 (R2Δ= .08) ELSI scores strongly predicted physical health (B = 0.57, ± 0.15) and fully mediated the previous relationship between alcohol consumption and physical health (B = 0.41, ± 0.76).Discussion and Conclusions: The positive health benefit associated with alcohol consumption in the NZLSA data is better explained by who is doing the drinking rather than the quantity of drink. Older people with high economic living standards are healthier and consume more alcohol compared to their at-risk counterparts. Future research will investigate whether factors like health literacy might further explain this phenomenon.