The end of the ginissance...?
The past decade has seen a massive boom in the gin industry in the UK, something which has been dubbed the 'ginissance'.
interestingly it was deregulation of the previous 1751 Gin act in 2009 which allowed smaller manufacturers to set up distilleries. Prior to 2009 only relatively large players had been able to produce gin.
Since then, and in only 15 years hundreds of micro-distilleries have sprung up and there is now an enormous choice of gins to choose from, infused with a wide range of botanical ingredients.
You can check out some of them here.
And Britain has become the world’s largest exporter of gin, this is a real British success story.
Taxes killing the industry...?
However, another form of regulation, in the simple form of increasing taxes, now threatens this success.
A staggering 80% of the price of a bottle of Gin are taxes, which is almost double the proportion in EU countries, and the latest budget added on an additional 4% to this, another own-goal by Labour.
And it's not just high taxes, the cost of the raw materials of Gin has also increased recently and this is being passed onto consumers, naturally.
I mean I understand why the tax on alcohol is so high, it's part of the UK's 'tax the unhealthy' policy... alcohol consumption costs the NHS a fortune every year, but the problem here is that it's not high-end gin drinkers who have alcohol problems, and one might say the same about craft-beer drinkers too, this 80% is really targeted at making the cheap options more expensive: the dodgy vodkas and super strength lagers of the world.
But on a global level it's penalising cute little businesses by making them uncompetitive.
A way out...?
Something which may perversely help micro-gin makers is the increasing demand for 'posh' low or zero alcohol drinks market. Alcohol isn't as trendy as it once was, and there are plenty of ways of making tasty bitter botanicals which aren't 30% alcohol.
I SHIT YOU NOT, A 70CL bottle of one of these types of drinks, pretending to be a spirit, will set you back almost £30....
All it's got in it is seaweed and a few other bits and bobs, man, this has to be the way forward, I am half tempted to get involved in this myself!
Maybe that's the future for some of these micro gin distilleries: repurpose their hardware into making non-alcoholic drinks, and save on that 80% tax.
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The gin market is crazy these days. My other half has been given a lot of bottles, but can't get through them. I prefer whisky which is also heavily taxed. There has to be some compromise with that to avoid push people out of business. Some places have a minimum price for alcohol that helps curb the binge drinkers without hitting the premium brands too hard. I only have the odd glass of Scotch. I expect there are 0% versions of that too, but I probably wouldn't bother. I do think soft drinks in bars are over-priced considering they don't have all the tax, but that's probably how they make a profit.
I agree that a more nuanced solution to taxing alcohol would be good, and I know what you mean about soft drinks out, one feels like one is mugged off if one buys a soft drink from a bar. Sometimes you can get a cheap pint of lime and soda.
Eating or drinking out has all the costs of them running the business, but pubs especially can struggle to attract punters. Our local is generally pretty quiet, so I wonder how they keep going.
Yes I often wonder that about many pubs!!!
Lots of business owners are looking for a way they can game the system by going for cheap materials, am not into gin but this idea is top notch, if there is already a customer base it's worth it
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The obvious solution: Turn all the high streets into an assortment of Turkish barbers and vape shops, and then everything else should be owned by the foreign mega corporations.
Easy peasy!
I think that's already been done!