Tastes change, boozing goes on

By SCOTT MacLEOD

New Zealanders have rekindled their love affair with the bottle after a 30-year slide in alcohol consumption.

Figures suggest we will quaff 440 million litres of booze this year - 10 per cent more than five years ago.

That works out at a beer-can-sized tipple a day for each person, including babies and non-drinkers.

The long slide started in 1970 as people lost their taste for beer, levelled out in the late 1990s, and started picking up in earnest last year.

The surge is marked by a jump in the sale of wine and spirits, which suggests New Zealanders now prefer a stronger tipple.

Last year, wine sales rose 10.6 per cent and spirits 9.6 per cent, compared with 2.7 per cent for beer.

Even the beer was stronger, by an average of 3.3 per cent, as the heady "premium" brands gained favour.

These figures reflect the changing role of alcohol in our society, away from the "six o'clock swill" when men would dash to the pub after work and guzzle as much cheap beer as they could in an hour or less.

These days it is more acceptable for women to go out, and the liberalisation of drinking laws has given liquor a role in restaurants, clubs and even airports.

Thomas Chin, of the Distilled Spirits Association, said the typical drinker's "taste profile" had changed.

Instead of sticking with one type of drink, a person might now have a cold beer after mowing the lawn, an afternoon gin, a wine with dinner and a nightcap before bed.

"You don't drink one single product all night long," Mr Chin said. "You drink for the occasion."

Today's drinker is wider-travelled, more discerning, and identifies more with branding than with general classes of drink.

Thirty years ago, people were beer drinkers, wine drinkers or spirit drinkers, Mr Chin said. Now they specified brands such as Lion Red, Church Road Chardonnay or Coruba Rum.

One of the biggest switches is to ready-mixed drinks bought in stubbie-sized bottles. Statistics New Zealand said three-quarters of spirits sales by volume last year were ready-mixed, helping spirits triple its share of the liquor market in seven years.

Critics attribute the surge to a sugary base and bright labelling on ready-mixes that lure younger drinkers, but Mr Chin said it was more to do with convenience, changing tastes and the involvement of big brands in the market.

The chief executive of the Beer, Wine and Spirits Council, Nicki Stewart, said sophisticated marketing and the fact that "we make some very good wines now" had changed liquor tastes.

"I think women are playing a larger part, too," she said. "It wasn't that long ago I would feel uncomfortable in a bar, but I don't now. There are wonderful cafes and bars that are a safe environment to meet friends."

Women were more independent, had more income, and did most of the purchasing in supermarkets, which now stocked a wide range of beer and wine.

At the leading edge of the changing patterns are advertisers. They try to make drinkers feel a "lifestyle" affinity with their tipple of choice. This can make drinkers feel such "ownership" of a brand they will tease people who drink something else.

The cheap Lion Red brand aims at working-class men, targeting poorer suburbs with themes such as "red blooded".

Speight's "southern man" targets South Islanders and those who admire the strong, silent real man, whereas the so-called premium beers are pitched at the Ponsonby and Auckland Viaduct set.

Hidden beneath the official figures is the home brew industry, which gains strength every time the Government bumps up excise tax and is now estimated at 4 per cent of the market.

The modern home-brewer is not restricted to beer, but may have an elaborate still that pumps out spirits.

Overall, beer is still easily the biggest-selling type of liquor, and we drink more per capita than most other Westerners.

We drink less spirits and wine than most countries, despite the growing popularity of those drinks.

Overall - and despite our reputation for heavy boozing - the average New Zealander's annual consumption of pure alcohol, 7.4 litres, is only just above the Western median of 6.9 litres.

But this is still enough to cause problems.

A policy adviser at the Alcohol Advisory Council, Wendy Moore, disputed whether people's changing drinking patterns was a sign of maturity.

"I think they are just drinking different products, and that's not necessarily a sign of sophistication."