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Buckfast tops fortified wine charts
Controversial tonic wine Buckfast has risen to become Britain’s number one fortified wine, according to latest figures.
Off-licence sales of the notorious ‘Buckie’ have risen 40% in the past year to £31 million in value.
This has seen it beating the likes of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and Ports such as Croft and Cockburn’s to be the nation’s biggest-selling fortified wine brand.
According to a Nielsen report, Harvey’s and Martini’s sales both fell 5% to £26m and £24m in value over the same period.
Known in Scotland, the brands’ biggest market, as “wreck the hoose juice”, the caffeine-laden drink has been linked recently to 5,300 crimes in the last three years by Strathclyde police.
The tonic wine, based on a French recipe, is made by Benedictine monks at the peaceful Buckfast Abbey in Devon. They have been making the drink since 1890.
It has an abv of 15% and each 750ml bottle reportedly has 37.5mg/100ml of caffeine – more than eight cans of Coca-Cola.
Of the crimes linked to Buckfast by Strathclyde police, over the three years from 2006-2009, 114 had involved the use of the bottle itself in violent assaults.
Buckfast accounts for 0.5% of alcohol sales in Scotland, where it is also sometimes known as ‘commotion lotion’.
Rupert Millar, 15.03.2010
And who is buying this stuff… pass by any licenced corner shop at night (I do not mean respectable Independent Wine Merchants) and you will find loads of youngsters out their skulls on this stuff. They are normally under-age out to impress their stupid young girlfriends – or they are down to Tescos to buy their 24 bottles of beer for £7. What about the Chineese or Indian takeawys that are licenced – order a takeaway and some booze and have it delivered. The police know it is happening but if they do not receive complaints it just carries on…….. What a society we live in……….