A year of fun and a tipple or three

By DITA DE BONI

Millennium celebrations, the America's Cup and a change in liquor laws resulted in 418 million litres of alcoholic beverages available for sale last year, up 2 per cent on 1998.

Although only a marginal increase, the rise has maintained a two-year lift in liquor supplied to outlets after three years of steady decline.

The total volume on the market has declined markedly since 1987, when almost 465 million litres were available to consumers - 401.6 million litres of that, beer.

Statistics New Zealand figures released yesterday show that buoying last year's beverage volumes was an 8 per cent increase in wine, rising to 72.3 million litres.

Locally produced wine rose just 3.4 per cent against a flood of cheap imported product, up 28.3 per cent in the year.

Beer stocks managed a slight revival in a declining overall market, climbing 0.5 per cent to 316.9 million litres. Liquor sales in supermarkets became legal on December 1.

Although breweries have claimed more sophisticated bottled brews are big sellers with supermarket shoppers, figures show both tap beer and bottled beer declined in the year but canned beer rose slightly.

Spirit-based drinks - most commonly the ready-to-drink spirit mixes - continued to grow, by 9.6 per cent, while pure spirits dropped 3 per cent to 8.7 million litres.

There were only 3.119 billion cigarettes available during the year - the lowest number since 1973 - with roll-your-own tobacco also falling, by 2.6 per cent to 736 tonnes.