Tax Jumps on Wine and Spirits but Falls on Fizz

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BBC: A major shake-up of the way alcohol is taxed could leave many drinks costing more from Tuesday.

Under what the Treasury says are new "common-sense" principles, tax is being levied according to a drink's strength.

Duty will increase overall, with most wines and spirits seeing rises, but will fall on lower-alcohol drinks and most sparkling wine.

Taxes on draught pints will not change, an additional measure designed to support pubs.

Alcohol duties have been frozen since 2020. These changes were originally scheduled for February this year but were postponed by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as the cost-of-living crisis continued.

Now with prices still rising, though at a slower rate, the government is going ahead with a 10.1% rise in alcohol duties, and is also overhauling the system. » | Lucy Hooker, Business reporter, BBC News | Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Oh the joyless Tories! Heap more misery on the less well-off, why don’t you? Price fags and booze out of the budgets of all but the superrich. Workers and the middle class be damned!

Thank goodness I gave up smoking over one and a quarter years ago; and, as it happens, at least for the moment, I am not drinking alcohol either: I haven’t had an alcoholic drink for over five weeks. My wallet is thanking me for this as are my lungs and liver! – Mark

Trouble brewing: Rishi Sunak heckled on pint-pulling photo op: Prime minister challenged by pub landlord as he promotes changes to alcohol duty at London beer festival »

Brazil Hopes the World Will Get a Taste for Its Favourite Spirit

While cheaper cachaça is transparent, the more expensive bottles take on darker colours after ageing in wooden barrels

BBC: There is no other drink that represents Brazil more than the sugar cane spirit cachaça.

You visit a bustling bar with friends on a hot evening, and enjoy cold glasses of the country's national cocktail - caipirinha, a mixture of cachaça, sugar, and lime, with lots and lots of ice.

Or just as popular - you drink cachaça neat, downing shots to toast your companions.

Yet like the nation as a whole, the spirit has had a difficult pandemic.

With bars and restaurants across Brazil closed for long periods since last spring and households not allowed to mix, sales slumped by almost a quarter in 2020.

Producers and industry leaders now hope to boost overseas orders of cachaça, in order to compensate. But as Luciano Sadi Andrade, marketing manager at distillers Companhia Müller de Bebidas, admits: "It has always been a challenge... to explain the concept of cachaça for the foreign market."

So what exactly is cachaça? Pronounced "ka-SHAS-sa", it is distilled from sugar cane juice. This, Brazil says, makes it different to rum, which is typically made from the molasses, or thick treacle, left over after sugar cane has been processed into sugar.

Fans of cachaça say this makes it taste fresher and fruitier than rum. » | Luana Ferreira, Business reporter, Brazil | Thursday, August 19, 2021