Hello all.
I have a gripe and wondering if others have noticed this with their favorite alcoholic beverage.
I bought a bottle of Jim Beam devils cut today. One of my favourite drops. I haven't bought it for a little while and noticed it is now 40% alcohol down from 45% for the same price. Sufficed to say I'm ticked off.
Anyone else noticed this sort of reduction with their beverage of choice lately?
Some places tax by alcohol content, reducing the percentage gets you into a lower bracket. Australia doesn't.
Or they figure we'll buy more to make up for the difference.
Or maybe the brewers are concerned for our well being. Aren't we lucky!
Australia mostly certainly does tax by alcohol content. You can check it here. The only difference is we don't have different brackets above 10% alcohol content.
Reducing a 700ml bottle from 45% to 40% would mean they are paying $2.90 less excise on it.
Fair enough. I was thinking of USA sales taxes, although that's too much like hard work to figure out though to check if that's the reason.
Didn't we do the same thing in Australia with beer not too long ago? I'm assuming lowering costs was the reason there as well?
Reducing a 700ml bottle from 45% to 40% would mean they are paying $2.90 less excise on it.
Zappy has the answer right here. That $2.90 is being trousered by the manufacturer, distributor and retailer.
Yuuuuuuuuup! Jim beam have done it too, not happy.
Are you upset you can't get pissed as cheap?
For ozbargainers, wouldn't you be wanting to save your health?
wouldn't you be wanting to save your health?
So have one less drink instead of paying what equates to a higher price for a lower alcohol content? How can you even attempt to reframe this as good for the consumer lmao
Alcohol is undeniably an extremely toxic substance for humans, both socially and physcially.
It isnt even one less drink. A 30ml shot of 35% is still one standard drink. With the fact one stabdard is the 10 grams of ethanol, you still get 10.5g from the above abv.
The costs social, esp in a country with a bad drinking problem and culture, like Australia where everyone needs to "be a hard kent and get smashed", easily justifies heavier taxing on alcohol. Remeber we are a very low income/socio economic country with a huge welfare crowd.
You are right! Everyone should switch to weed immediately…..oh, wait…
do you think before you post?
If you're drinking alcohol to get "pissed", you've got bigger issues.
Save my health for what
They did that with VB a while back and had to undo it after backlash and drop sales.
By changing the recipe for VB it might make it less effective at cleaning drains or getting the oilstains off driveways!
Yeah the taste changed it was strange most people I know went off it
If they've changed the taste i might have to give it a try. I've been off it since 1984.
Was my first beer, drank it for 5 years and can't stand it anymore. Practically Tooheys Old and my own home brew now
reducing the alcohol content is good for your liver. what's good for the liver is good for the economy.
They do it with beer all the time, it's hard to get a sambucca to flame and more cause the percentage has dropped.
The other trick in combination with dropping percentage is to take 30-45 mls out per bottle.
So carton of
Tooheys New 24 Stubbies 9lts
James Squire 24 Stubbies 8.28ltrs
Hahn Super Dry 24 Stubbies 7.92lts
That's over a litre or 3 Stubbies less over a box.
Drop the alcohol, drop the size, charge the same = more profits
I drink alcoholic drinks purely for the taste- I'm a connoisseur- if they could get it to taste exactly the same way with zero alcohol I would love that and pay the same price.
How mature of you. You must also smoke cigarettes for the aesthetics of it, drink coffee for the aroma, and add aspirin to water because you like the sound as it goes 'fizzzzz'
I'm mellowing out on my zero THC bong right now- smooooth.
Does it taste any different?
Each to their own but I never check the alcohol content on any drinks. I drink them because I enjoy the taste and i have no interest or consideration in how alcoholic they are. Taking longer to wipe me out or being less effective at making me drunk is not a consideration that I make. If the change in alcohol content somehow changed the taste this would be a consideration for me. My preferred drop is single malt scotch and i can honestly say that through thousands of dollars worth of bottles of the stuff I've never once looked at the alcohol content on the label.
Well said.
Alcohol content most definitely affects the taste
It seems as though JB are re-arranging a few of their products, had a similar but different experience with Booker Noes.
It all but disappeared from shelves for the first half of this year, I heard on the grapevine this was due to a re-branding effort which would see the same product released in a different bottle for double the price - going from ~$100 to ~$200 a bottle. That doesn't appear to have happened so far and it's starting to appear on shelves again at the normal price, perhaps I should stock up :D
I think it's a ditch attempt to maintain expected returns in a stagnant market. Seen the same thing happen to candy bars. Hopefully it's not indicative of some greater movement
I work at Liqourland and have noticed it across the board on a lot of products, no idea why it is the case. Considering the fermentation process and how these products are made i cant exactly see how money could be saved by the producer. Youd think lower alcohol wine and beer would be cheaper but is isnt, even Radlers are over 30 a carton and are practically soft drinks