To think the Scottish government have got it all wrong about minimum alcohol pricing?

[rhondajean]

Right I'm just back from Italy on holiday.

A large bottle of peroni is 1 euro 50 in a side shop. Carafes of wine are five euros in restaurants, you can buy half decent bottles of wine for four euros. Spirits yes are pricey but wine and beer are so much cheaper than here.

I saw two drunk people all holiday, one was english and one was German. In an all inclusive hotel, I didn't once have to que for a drink at the bar.

So am I wrong in thinking that the idea of making us pay more for alcohol isn't really going to help and instead we need to find a way of effecting cultural change? Because people are just going to flood in cheap black market booze like they already do with fags aren't they.

I read a theory it's a Nordic thing - to do with the weather and genetics - sorry if this has been done to death but seeing the prices really got me thinking we have it all wrong somehow.

I am not talking about price of soft drinks in pubs, I am talking supermarkets when they have offers on crates of alcohol etc.

Well you can still buy soft drinks cheaper so that makes no sense.

We went down south once and got 2 pints of coke and DH handed the guy a fiver.... And he put his hand out for more!!!

It was the same price for coke as for a pint!

Kayano you need enormous amounts of equipments to get home brewing right - it's best done in batches of 26 litres at a time, and you need one of those bottles with a lock that holds water (so that CO2 produced by fermentation can get out but no air can get in) Then you need the right yeast, alcohol metres, bottles, corks, bottle racks - it's really only worth it if you're serious about it.

You get the sparkle by not using sulphites - you're basically provoking fermentation in the bottle. My mum never used proper champagne bottles and wired corks (too expensive) so she used conventional wine bottles and corks. This meant that you had to be really vigilant and check your bottles daily - if you saw the cork start bulging out, you had fermentation.

The upside of home brewing is quick results - you start the wine in August-ish (nectarine season) and you'll have something nice to drink by New Year. The end result is dry and slightly fruity, not sweet at all, and very easy to drink. But hard work. DH and I limit ourselves to sloe gin, it's easier.

Oh, and it isn't limited to nectarines - elderflowers work well too, as do various other fruits. Damsons often make sparkling red wine very like a sparkling Shiraz.

You have to think of the problem in chunks.

The street drinkers and the hardened alcoholics are dead men walking - the government can't do much to save them except by expensive personal interventions which still won't work without the will - look at George Best. They are not price sensitive.

But young teens are very price sensitive. If you make white lightning twice as expensive then they will drink less of it, and fewer of them will develop an abusive alcohol habit early (and fewer of them will drop dead on the spot of alcohol poisoning or vomit inhalation or walking off cliffs).

And people like us are price sensitive - the MNers on a moderate income splitting a bottle of wine a night stocking up our risk of liver disease and any number of horrible cancers. We make a beeline for the plonk on special offer. We probably won't stop drinking, but we will still look out for the cheaper bottles, and those will be the 12% wines rather than the 15% ones - or the 4% lagers not the 5% lagers. That will make a significant impact on consumption, and damage done. And the generation below us might not get into the habit of a bottle a night in the first place.

I think it's worth it. It really won't impact much on actual moderate drinkers.

i'd be happy if pubs started selling 2.6% lager again... it's refreshing on a summer evening, i don't need 4 or 5% alcohol in my lager.

I think we also need to do something about the social acceptability of drunkenness - I just can't see how it is ever OK. I like a glass of wine, but I can count the number of hangovers I've had in my life on the fingers of one hand, and I'm 44. I have more self-respect than to stagger around slurring and vomiting - and that's aside from the loss of inhibition leading to dangerous behaviour.

I second the 2.6% lager idea - should be extended to cider as well, the French do some really pleasant cider at around 2%. We need some decent adult-tasting drinks - some without any alcohol and not sold a rip-off prices would be even better. I had a really nice concoction involving apple and other things including mint at a pub the other day - really nice, not sickly sweet.