Evolving from a rum state: Australia's alcohol consumption

Kym Anderson*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Europeans settlers in the Australian colonies had a reputation of being heavy drinkers. Rum dominated during the first few decades, followed by beer. It took until the 1970s before Australia's annual per capita consumption of wine exceeded 10 L, and even then, wine represented only one-fifth of national alcohol consumption. But over the next two decades, per capita wine consumption nearly trebled and beer consumption shrunk – the opposite of what happened to global alcohol consumption shares. This paper draws on newly compiled data sets to (i) reveal that Australia was not much more alcoholic than Britain or southern Europe during the nineteenth century and (ii) help explain why it took so long for a consumer interest in wine to emerge in Australia.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)724-749
Number of pages26
JournalAustralian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Volume64
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2020

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Evolving from a rum state: Australia's alcohol consumption'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this