Conventional wisdom tells us that people spend more on ‘vices’ during a recession, drowning their sorrows with booze, fags, scratchcards and the dogs. However it looks like things are going against conventional wisdom here (as they so frequently do) – the Irish Times has reported that alcohol sales are showing an ‘unprecedented’ fall. There certainly were some quite dramatic figures:
The largest decline was in spirits where sales declined by 19.1 per cent. Sales of beer were down 12.4 per cent while sales of cider and wine fell by 12 per cent and 10.6 per cent respectively.
The Drinks Industry Group of Ireland blame cross-border shopping for the loss in sales, as well as the economic downturn. I haven’t been booze shopping up north, and I don’t think my consumption has changed much in the last six months – but haven’t we all been very aware of the high price of drink here for quite a while?