In a special bulletin, Cellarbrations at Thirlmere proprietor, Brett Hallgarth, provides evidence to corroborate recent industry findings that the RTD tax hike is encouraging riskier forms of alcohol consumption.
"In our shop, just after the 70 per cent tax hike on RTDs came into effect, a group of regulars in their early 20s traded their usual Friday night drinks purchase of two cases of Jim Beam White & Cola RTDs to four 700ml bottles of bourbon.
Funny that they grabbed six bottles of coke to go with their purchase and were adamant they weren’t going to buy RTDs at the new price.
I ran a calculation on how many bottles of coke they needed for the 2800ml of bourbon they buy every week to get the same dilution as a 5 per cent ABV premix.
The answer was 15.3 bottles. (9.3 bottles more than they bought).
Sure enough on the Sunday they were in here complaining of illness and the fact they ran out of coke and were drinking the bourbon straight.
The only people that will benefit from this tax hike are the government and liver transplant specialists.
All the work our industry has done in educating on standard drinks is out the window."