Finland and alcohol ?

Hi,

I know some of the people here are from Finland and/or from other scandinavian countries and I just had dinner with someone who said he went to Finland a few years back and that he found it really expansive and hard to find alcohol there. He said there's very few places where alcohol is sold and they have alcohol only shops where people need to buy their alcohol from and that it was really expensive.

I was just wondering how exactly the situation is?

In my case (Belgium and the UK), alcohol is readily available in any corner shop, night shop, grocery store, superstore.... Lower-quality alcohol is dirt cheap and is bought by most students while higher-quality alcohol like real Champagne, Goose Vodka,... are more expensive and bought by richer individuals, usually adults (or rich adults' kids)...

You can find beer, cider, and certain "long drinks" at corner stores, but only if it's below about 5% alcohol by volume. Anything stronger has to be bought at Alko, the state booze monopoly. Alcohol is taxed rather heavily, so that especially "cheap" hard liquor isn't really (OTOH for expensive spirits the tax doesn't add proportionately all that much).

There's a lot of support for raising alcohol taxes further, but the problem is that Estonia is a short ferry-ride away from Helsinki, and EU regulations permit import of large quantities of alcohol if they're arguably for "personal use," which means that if they go up too much, just the people that the high prices are supposed to keep from drinking too much will simply hop on the ferry, get totally shitfaced, and bring back enough cheap vodka to last until the next trip.

The reasons for this system are historical and cultural. We had a strong temperance movement that culminated with a prohibition, which resulted in alcohol consumption going completely nuts as organized smugglers and moonshiners took to flooding the country with cheap, low-quality spirits. When that was dismantled, it was replaced by a rather grim and heavily-taxed state monopoly, including "spirits cards" that tracked exactly how much everyone bought, and included official intervention if someone exceeded certain limits. The system has been slowly relaxed to the point that nowadays Alko actually has a reasonably nice selection of stuff — but they still often look more like warehouses than attractive wine stores, they're not at every street corner, and, yes, the prices are high.

(Consequently, just about every Finn I know brings back at least a couple of bottles of booze whenever traveling abroad. I sure do.)

Thing is, we don't handle booze well. We have among the highest homicide rates in Western Europe, and IIRC about 80% of that involve dead-drunk boozers grabbing a knife or an ax and whacking one of the group more or less at random. The culture also tends to excessive drinking. We're not quite as bad as the Brits or the Russians (although more violent than either, probably), but it is a serious problem in many ways. IOW, I'm not sure that the nice system you have down south would work here; it would almost certainly make some bad things much worse.

Thanks PJ

Prime Junta said:

We're not quite as bad as the Brits or the Russians (although more violent than either, probably), but it is a serious problem in many ways.

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I think Britain gets an unfair reputation when it comes to heavy drinking.

Most of the people behaving really badly are almost as loud, ugly, and ghastly when sober.

Pladio said:

Hi,

I know some of the people here are from Finland and/or from other scandinavian countries and I just had dinner with someone who said he went to Finland a few years back and that he found it really expansive and hard to find alcohol there. He said there's very few places where alcohol is sold and they have alcohol only shops where people need to buy their alcohol from and that it was really expensive.

I was just wondering how exactly the situation is?

In my case (Belgium and the UK), alcohol is readily available in any corner shop, night shop, grocery store, superstore…. Lower-quality alcohol is dirt cheap and is bought by most students while higher-quality alcohol like real Champagne, Goose Vodka,… are more expensive and bought by richer individuals, usually adults (or rich adults' kids)…

Click to expand...

Finland, Sweden and Norway have state monopolies as PJ describe. Denmark doesnt. At least in Sweden it does help bring down average consumption and alcohol related conditions/accidents (it is one of the reasons we live longer than the pesky Danes) compared to countries like Britain or France, but it doesnt help against our old tradition of binge drinking.

Prices are overall higher than in continental Europe or Britain. The only place where I've encountered similar prices is in the puritan dictatorship of Singapore. Norway is most expensive while Denmark is cheapest, but since most of the price is tax and the taxation schemes vary a bit the exact ranking might vary depending on product cathegory or quality (a few years ago cheap vodka was cheaper in Denmark while expensive Cognac/whatever was cheaper here as we primarily tax alcohol content).

Some price examples from my local monopoly outlet:
A 33cl bottle of Heineken EUR 1.40
75cl bottle of the cheapest red wine (Campos de Luz) EUR 4.80
70cl Absolut Vodka EUR 24
70cl Jack Daniels EUR 30
70cl Lagavulin (16 year old Whisky) EUR 58
Dom Perignon Champagne EUR 120

EDIT: The restrictive alcohol policy does have negative sideeffects in the form of smuggling though

Benedict said:

I think Britain gets an unfair reputation when it comes to heavy drinking.

Most of the people behaving really badly are almost as loud, ugly, and ghastly when sober.

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Britain has horrible stats when it comes to a lot of social issues, but your overall alcohol consumption isnt among the very highest. It is at about the same level as Finland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

Zaleukos said:

Britain has horrible stats when it comes to a lot of social issues, but your overall alcohol consumption isnt among the very highest. It is at about the same level as Finland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

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Result, cheap booze and only a moderate to high social issue, we've done well.

Prices seems pretty the same than what we have here with the provincial government monopoly on hard liquor and most wines. It's softer in some province but in Ontario(where Toronto and Ottawa are), over there, you can't even purchase beer in Corner Stores. You have to go to a government owned "beer store".

Well, thank god we can still get drunk cheap over here and the evil socialists haven't taken our booze away yet. 30 EU for Jack is a bit steep(though I realize it qualifies as imported rotgut over there. Are there tariffs, etc, involved, btw?)

As most of you from overseas probably know, America leaves a lot of things like liquor regulations up to the states, and even local governments. I grew up in a totally dry town in Illinois, the official headquarters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. At that time there was no alcohol of any kind allowed within the city limits. The town borders Chicago, and the street that separated the two had non-stop saloons and liquor stores for blocks on the south(Chicago) side of it. There was even a retail liquor store in the el station so you could hop back on the train with your bottle. I doubt the good ladies accomplished too much but at least they tried.

Off-topic: I happened to glance through the wiki for Evanston, and found this, which is new since my leaving, but which should explain a lot about my pinko problem:

Nicknames
* Since the late 20th century, because of Evanston's usually-liberal politics, it is sometimes humorously (or sarcastically) referred to as "The People's Republic of Evanston."

Click to expand...

Zaleukos said:

Britain has horrible stats when it comes to a lot of social issues, but your overall alcohol consumption isnt among the very highest. It is at about the same level as Finland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

Click to expand...

AFAIK its not the amount but they way finns drink that its the problem. They drink it all (as much as they can) in few sessions instead drinking smaller amouts over longer period of time. They dont know how to drink moderately. They either drink hard or dont drink drink at all.

Actually, there are plenty of Finns who are able to drink moderately. Trouble is, most of them *also* drink hard.

Indonesia's province of Aceh deals with the problem the old fashioned way.

In sweden people from finland are famous for drinking.

There was research done, and most countries complain swedes drink too much,,,, while the finnish people complained swedish people drink too little… I think that says a lot about our drunken neighbours…………..

That.

Compared to *our* drunken neighbors, though, we're amateurs.

Prime Junta said:

Actually, there are plenty of Finns who are able to drink moderately. Trouble is, most of them *also* drink hard.

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I think we need to define what moderate drinking is. I think it was officially somthing like glass of wine on dinner or beer or two after workdays or up to seven drinks on one day per week. Instead of that many finns drink almost none on workdays and then drink very hard (12 -18) on one or two days per month on weekends.

Hard drinking is common and socially accepted. The only way to change it is to change peoples viewpoints about hard drinking. If doctors call it alcoholism they refuse to believe them. They think that its not alcoholism because they drink only on few days per month. But they dont understand that the amount they drink in single session is also a factor.

Many people who try to drink moderately on workdays also end up drinking hard on workdays. They simply dont know how to stop. So they avoid drinking on workdays and drain it all on weekends.

zakhal said:

I think we need to define what moderate drinking is.

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Britain seems to have some stupid definitions, like anything over 6 units in a single sitting counts as "binge drinking" (a bottle of wine has around 10 units).

Sure you wouldn't want to be drinking more than that every night but it's hardly going mental having two bottles of wine between two people.

Two bottles of wine and then moving on to digestifs maybe, or two bottles of wine with dinner after getting warmed up first.

I have this quote from Antti Ahlo, an Finnish othopedic surgeon and one of my teachers at med school: "Among the weak french wines, I prefer Courvoisier". So there!

For those of you not knowing what Courvoisier is, Wikipedia is your friend.

Pladio said:

Hi,
...
In my case (Belgium and the UK), alcohol is readily available in any corner shop, night shop, grocery store, superstore…. Lower-quality alcohol is dirt cheap and is bought by most students while higher-quality alcohol like real Champagne, Goose Vodka,… are more expensive and bought by richer individuals, usually adults (or rich adults' kids)…

Click to expand...

Belgian beer!!! Best beer there is!!!

Benedict said:

Britain seems to have some stupid definitions, like anything over 6 units in a single sitting counts as "binge drinking" (a bottle of wine has around 10 units).

Click to expand...

Would you say that one unit has 4,7% of alcohol? Thats what we drink here usually. In other countries like US the % is smaller so they can drink more of "units".

Here people often drink 6-12 of those units in home as a "starter" before going to town.

Sure you wouldn't want to be drinking more than that every night but it's hardly going mental having two bottles of wine between two people.

Two bottles of wine and then moving on to digestifs maybe, or two bottles of wine with dinner after getting warmed up first.

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Depends? If you continuously spend 2-3 weekends per month drinkin few bottles of wine then it would mean that you spend most of your weekend freetime while drunk or in hangover. Even few bottles can be somthing if thats all you do on weekends. Note the word "pattern":

Early Signs of a Problem
Early signs of alcoholism include frequent intoxication, an established pattern of heavy drinking…Other early signs of alcoholism include black-out drinking…

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Those two are what I see most often. The enldess "weekend" drinking and "black-out" drinking. Also many people dont see their friends except when intoxicated. They dont do anything else together except drink and visit bars in town.

Personally I know many both friends and family members who have drinked themselves to death or near-death. They started with the weekend drinking too.

lghartveit said:

I have this quote from Antti Ahlo, an Finnish othopedic surgeon and one of my teachers at med school: "Among the weak french wines, I prefer Courvoisier". So there!

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If I have the choice:

Legend of the Flak Panzer Oil

Flak Panzer Oil, FPO in short, is a legendary drink that the Finnish virtual pilots have distributed in the domestic and foreign virtual pilots' conventions. FPO is black as moonless night, strong as acid and has claimed numerous kills over unwary pilots in various conventions around US and Europe. It's ingredients are secret and only a few people are trusted with its recipe.

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I lost the "enjoyment" of drinking years ago though. I want to spend my freetime clear-headed not buzzed. Young people want to get rid of their clear minds but when they get old and grey they want them back.

I have an occasional porter or three once in awhile, but I gave up anything stronger than that completely. My current favorite is Young's Double Chocolate Stout. A porter/stout (very dark beer) with a strong taste of dark bitter chocolate.