Just back from three weeks overseas, and then Covid. Fortunately our four jabs did the job: if I had not had a runny nose I wouldn’t have known I had it.
I thought I would write a few lines about booze overseas: quality, range and distribution.
Our first stop was the US. We go there quite often, mainly to visit my wife’s family most of whom are about 200 miles north of New York City. In the US there is an amazing range of very good craft beers. That’s happened because the mainstream US beer is so bad. I would seriously prefer to drink water than many of their big selling brands. The reader should remember that I am an unashamed beer snob. However, even a drinker of Tooheys New or Victoria Bitter would draw the line at US mainstream beer. I’m not so sure about those who like Great Northern or Ironjack.
We used to drink wine on our visits to the US. I like a good Old Vine Zinfandel. But any California wine worth drinking costs an arm and a leg. The prices for Napa Cabernet are stratospheric. Most wines, red or white, under $US 15 have noticeable residual sugar and for me are undrinkable. So I looked for Spanish reds – Garnacha and Rioja, French Cotes de Rhones, and Italian Pinot Grigios.
Wine distribution varies from state to state. In New York state beer can be bought in supermarkets, wine and spirits in stand alone shops. In a few states there are state monopolies for wine and spirits.
In this land of contradictions one can go to war, vote, buy a firearm at 18, but not drink even a beer until 21. As they say “go figure”.
We then visited friends in England. Spent the first day in London walking the “Monopoly board”, stopping for a reviver or two in beautiful pubs. I love English cask conditioned ales from the hand pump, and these are still in the better pubs. There is a wide range of wines in their liquor shops, as well as beers and magnificent single malt whiskies. We saw more English fizzy wine, priced close to Champagne. There was a range of Australian wine in the shops. The Poms drink it at home – they wouldn’t take it out – only French will do for that!
Next stop was Copenhagen, where we had a lovely day with our biggest export customer. C is quite a city, if you like cities. People everywhere, lots of outdoor cafes and restaurants. There is a convenience supermarket down the road from where we stayed in the old section of the city. It had a reasonable range of beers, wines and spirits. I got a good local IPA and a couple of Cotes du Rhones at fair prices.
On a spare day we took the train over the bridge to Malmo, Sweden. It’s a spectacular trip, and worth it just for that. But we sell wine in Sweden, and I wanted to have a good look at a liquor shop. In Sweden, all the liquor shops are operated by a government monopoly. It shows. The range is adequate but not impressive, the layout is confusing, there were too many employees standing around doing nothing, the pricing inflexible. But I could have bought a bottle of Grange for less than in Australia – maybe that is testament to the low Swedish currency. Dan Murphys or a good Australian independent would eat this shop and spit it out. I noticed that each bottle or can of beer was individually priced. For a case, multiply the single price by 24. No six-pack or case discount. There must be a lot of wowsers pulling the strings in Sweden.
Returning home, I mused that we are very lucky in Australia when it comes to range and availability of booze. The taxes are too high, blame governments and do-gooders. But we enjoy a fine selection of Australian wines in many varieties and styles. There are many imports on offer. The range and quality of beer has exploded in recent years.
It really is good to be home. Now if it would just stop raining…….
