Alcohol cheaper than coke?!

[the_tyrant]

As a student with a bunch of penniless alcoholic friends in the "oppressive" region known as Ontario, we often sit down, with a few cokes and I will always here about the "injustice" that is inflicted, how the government is jacking up the alcohol prices X00% (X >= 2). I often laugh when the drunk guy says that in some mythical place you can get alcohol for cheaper than you can get a soft drink.

Well, I am currently in the Iberian peninsula on vacation, and I have witnessed first hand the existence of alcohol that is cheaper than soft drinks. I stayed in an apartment in old Lisbon, and when I walked into a local supermarket, I saw rows upon rows of wines for the price of 0.69 euros! 0.69! And than, there were wines going for 0.89, 1 euro, and for under 10 euros, I can get tens, if not hundreds to choose from! On the next shelf, I was able to see bottles of lipton ice tea for 1.6 euros, and the big bottles (>= 1 liter) of name brand drinks were all at least 1 euro.

Its not just an individual supermarket, it seems like in Portugal at large, the cheap wines are just cheaper than soft drinks. Even at the Lisbon aquarium restaurant, wine starts at 1.5/glass, while soft drinks start at 1.6!

How the hell does this happen? How can this happen? How can a winery profit from making wine, bottling it, ageing it for at least a year, and distributing wine, only to sell it for less than a euro? Even grape juice costs more! back in Canada, even vinegar costs more!

[Tribesman]

How the hell does this happen?
local price for local produce.

of name brand drinks
how much were the soft drinks of brands you were unfamiliar with?

[Betonov]

0,3 litres of coke: €1,80

0,5 litre of beer: €2,00

Nothing new here

[Jimbuna]

Well I'll be in Turkey very soon and I hope the same can be said of there :cool:

[u crank]

It was that way in the Dominican Rep. Drinks had more alcohol than mix. I got used to it. :O:

[Platapus]

If the alcohol is locally produced, the transportation costs will be less than importing soft drinks from greater distances.

Also the owners of the brand name products take a nice cut too.

[Wolferz]

At first I thought this topic was about nose candy which is definitely more expensive than booze. I just wish that soft drinks here were cheaper than booze. A designated driver gets a bit poor getting charged cocktail prices for a lousy watered down soft drink.:stare:

[Stealhead]

Well if the wine is cheap it most likely is produced locally and does not cost much to distribute.Coke on the other hand there may only be one or two bottleries in Portugal.And as you said it is cheap wine which also helps explain its low cost.

Portugal likely has an over abundance of cheap wineries take a cheap product and flooded market and you get low prices.

[Webster]

I think its all about how you get to that point because beer didn't get cheaper its just that soft drinks got way way more expensive for us.


anywhere around here it costs $1.50 - $1.79 for a 16oz coke, $1.50 - $1.29 for a 12oz coke yet a Budweiser costs you $1.50 - $1.25 and there are 2 or 3 lesser name brand beers like bush goes for $1.29 - 99 cents

add to that the average price for a bottle of water is $1.50

the absolute cheapest thing to drink around here is gatoraide/poweraide or related products because you can usually get a 32oz bottle for $1.75 - $1.50

[Tchocky]

South of France the wine is cheaper than bottled water.

[Penguin]

Hey tyrant, out of curiosity: do the folks in Ontario also call soft drinks 'coke'? I thought it would be a Southern US thing. :hmmm:

Other things to consider in the price comparision besides the already stated stuff:
- the amount of wine produced in the respective countries
- import tariffs/province taxes on wine (especially for Canada)
- per capita consumption of wine/softdrinks in both countries



0,3 litres of coke: €1,80

0,5 litre of beer: €2,00

Nothing new here

You're talking pub brices, not supermarket prices, aren't you? :06:

In Germany pubs are legally bound to have at least one drink being cheaper than the cheapest alcoholic drink. That's why you get a glass of milk here in every pub for 10 cents less than a beer... :D - mineral water is usually more expensive than beer.
Pretty logical to explain, with beer the profit comes from the amount the people drink. The profit per glass is higher from water, though the folks from the sober front tend to drink less glasses of water than the average boozer drinks glasses of beer.

[Betonov]

You're talking pub brices, not supermarket prices, aren't you? :06:



Yep, local pub that's the cheapest around :yep:

[Penguin]

hmm, I think in comparision to the average income in our countries we have the cheaper booze:()1::

Prices in my favorite pub in my quarter:
Alt beer: 0.2l 1.40€
Pilsener: 0.25l 1.80€
Weizen beer: 0.5l 3.40€
Coca Cola: 0.2l 1.80€
however: 1 glass of wine (1/8th l): 2.90€, organic wine 3.20€

Cheapest beer in the beverage store:
1 case (20 0.5l bottles): 5€ = 0.25€ per bottle :o (only drinkable in emergencies or after some real beers :dead:)

[Schroeder]

Hey tyrant, out of curiosity: do the folks in Ontario also call soft drinks 'coke'? I thought it would be a Southern US thing. :hmmm:

I thought Coke is the name for Coca Cola...:hmm2:

[Sailor Steve]

I thought Coke is the name for Coca Cola...:hmm2:
It is, but decades ago it became a generic name for all colas, much like "aspirin", or "xerox"...or "google"

[Herr-Berbunch]

I thought Coke is the name for Coca Cola...:hmm2:

I met a Turkish girl once (only once :D ) and offered to buy her a drink, she ordered Coke but all my friends found it hilarious that she pronounced it without the 'e' at the end. And I thought my luck was in.

[Penguin]

I thought Coke is the name for Coca Cola...:hmm2:

It confused the crap out of me when I was in Atlanta - Coca Cola city (Though it is possible to get a Pepsi there, too, with much begging :)):

http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2012/07/09/popvssodamap.gif


Hail the internet! I also found some stats about Ontario - looks like it's more of a pop region :hmmm::
http://www.popvssoda.com/stats/ON.html

[Herr-Berbunch]

Lake of the Woods County (stupid name!) really sticks out at the top of that map. :yep:

[Schroeder]

I met a Turkish girl once (only once :D ) and offered to buy her a drink, she ordered Coke but all my friends found it hilarious that she pronounced it without the 'e' at the end. And I thought my luck was in.
Be glad it went that way. Otherwise you would have met her 6 brothers who wouldn't have appreciated your actions. ;):O:


@Penguin

Strange, I've never heard that someone called it pop...:hmm2:
Learning something new every day.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Strange, I've never heard that someone called it pop...:hmm2:


Back in the '80s we (not my family, other people in the neighbourhood) used to have soft drinks delivered, the delivery guy was called the pop-man.

Looking at that map again, in US films and on telly it's always called soda. I guess most of the studios are in those areas that call it so. Da. :D

[Penguin]

Looking at that map again, in US films and on telly it's always called soda. I guess most of the studios are in those areas that call it so. Da. :D

Sodapop disagrees :O::
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3xfjd8M7K1rut9vdo1_500.jpg

(ok, the film is based on a book ;))

[Herr-Berbunch]

Sodapop? I thought his name was Rob. :O:

[August]

The Outsiders was a great book. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Cheapest beer in the beverage store:
1 case (20 0.5l bottles): 5€ = 0.25€ per bottle :o (only drinkable in emergencies or after some real beers :dead:)

Once drank...never forgotten :)

[vienna]

Back in the mid-70s, there was an abrupt rise in the price of sugar causing anything using sugur to rise in price accordingly. A friend of mine was a union shop steward at a local Safeway market and I used to visit him him when I would stop in for groceries. We were having a conversation when we heard one of the clerks stocking the soda shelves in the next aisle give forth with a loud and descriptive string of invectives. We both went over to see what the problem was and he waved a pricing sheet in the air and said, "That's it! I'm becoming an alcoholic! The price of a can of beer is now less than the price of a can of Coke!"...

<O>

[Penguin]

Back in the mid-70s, there was an abrupt rise in the price of sugar causing anything using sugur to rise in price accordingly.
<O>

So was this abround the time the big beverage manufacturers in the US substituted sugar with corn syrup?
Here in Europe it never changed: all non-diet softdrinks are still sweatened with sugar. *giggles at the "made with real sugar" soda ads*

[vienna]

So was this abround the time the big beverage manufacturers in the US substituted sugar with corn syrup?
Here in Europe it never changed: all non-diet softdrinks are still sweatened with sugar. *giggles at the "made with real sugar" soda ads*


If memory serves, that was probably when the change was made. The odd thing that just occurred to me: In all likelyhood, Coca-Cola probably switched over to corn syrup at the same time. Odd that no one complained, given the uproar when "New Coke" was introduced a decade or so later... :hmmm:

<O>

[vienna]

http://img2.targetimg2.com/wcsstore/TargetSAS//img/p/11/51/11516350.jpg

(Hated this film...)

<O>

[Jimbuna]

Feel lucky I never saw that one :)

[Tribesman]

So was this abround the time the big beverage manufacturers in the US substituted sugar with corn syrup?

Doesn't that tie back to the rigging of the sugar market to wreck a local economy with the outcome that it wrecked the global market too.

[frau kaleun]

Strange, I've never heard that someone called it pop...:hmm2:


Around here you almost never hear it called anything else. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Strange, I've never heard that someone called it pop...:hmm2:
Learning something new every day.

Good grief man....what planet have you been living on? :o

Pop is the thing all our dreams as children used to be based on :)

[the_tyrant]

@Penguin, because of the whole "pop vs soda" debate, I just call the drinks by their proper name (aka, when I want a coke, I say I want a coke, when I want a sprite I say I want a sprite). But yeah, I feel that Ontario is majority "pop" region.

My favorite carbonated drink is Coca-Cola though. Interestingly, in many Asian countries, you will see menus say "Coca-Cola: 1.5$, Pepsi: 1.6$", and in that case, it actually means the drinks by Coca-Cola are 1.5$ (Coca-Cola, Sprite, etc), while the drinks by Pepsi Co. are 1.6$.


I had a chance to try a 1 euro wine today, a 1 euro 2011 vintage red wine.

It's not amazing by any stretch of imagination, but it is a perfectly drinkable wine. The taste is a bit "unbalanced" shall I say, it tastes sweet, and the smell doesn't exactly stand out, but it is perfectly competent and drinkable. In fact, the local Portuguese stuff for 1 euro is much more competent than the local Ontario made stuff that you need to pay nearly 20$ (Canadian) for.

I understand how wine can get this cheap, but considering that at the supermarket, grape juice is like 2 euros per liter, the price of wine is cheaper than grape juice! Still surprises me on how wine is so cheap in Europe.

[vienna]

I once knew a drummer from down south of the Mason-Dixon who used to call soda (or pop) "dope". He would sometimes forget himself when here in Los Angeles, usually after have imbibed a bit of the harder stuff, raising some eyebrows when he would ask for a cold "dope"...

<O>