Lining Up For Organic Liquor
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 03.20.08
Because sales of alcoholic beverages are still strictly controlled in Sweden, it's easy for the state's System Bolaget stores to measure how much organic beer, wine and hard spirits have grown in popularity in the last year.
System Bolaget had the (perhaps-puny goal) of getting one percent of its sales in 2007 from organic alcohol. The monopoly easily met that goal - selling four million liters of organic beer, wine and spirits - a 71% increase from 2006. Organic box wine grew immensely in popularity - and it is so relatively cheap that the press started to speculate that perhaps some new law should be put in place to discourage rampant over-consumption of boxed wine. System Bolaget must walk the weird line between trying to discourage over-consumption of alcohol but keeping itself in robust business, so the new goal is to have at least 50 organic items in its product line-up by the end of the year. While Swedish winos like organic red best, there's now an organic port wine and six different kinds of snapps - traditional Swedish aquavit - available, plus Scottish whiskey Benromach. While lines are shorter these days because the monopoly stays open later on Fridays, this week Friday's a holiday so today there's a rush to buy alcohol to accompany the traditional Easter dishes of eggs, pickled herring and lamb. Skål! Via ::Ekoweb (Swedish)
Most Huggable: Wave-Powered Boating, Green Buildings Cut Carbon, Wastewater Treatment Tech + More
|
More Chairs from Martino Gamper
|
Once these organic liquor becomes available, the shift will not be that immediate. Remember that there will be some sort of apprehension since most drinkers have been accustomed to the normal but hazardous liquor drinks. But until they try it, we will never know.