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