Christmas week was huge. Alcohol sales in the week ending December 25, 2021, topped £756 million, making it by far the biggest week for sales in the past three years – more than £60 million higher than last year. Self-isolation, consumer caution before Christmas and an extra trading day all contributed to a bumper seven days. This was even more impressive against a decline of…

Here’s the low-down on this month’s beer, cider, wine, spirits, no/low and RTD product launches: SPIRITS & LIQUEURS  The English Whisky Co’s The Single Cask range From 51.4% abv From £75 USP: The new range includes two whiskies. Peated Rum Cask, which is 51.4% abv and £85, is limited to 230 bottles and Virgin Oak and Sherry Cask is 52.6% abv…

The latest issue of Drinks Retailing magazine is now live.  Regular readers might notice a few changes to our pages. We’ve given the design a bit of a refresh and introduced a new section – Trade Talk – to provide what we hope are some useful nuggets of news, moves and insights from around the industry. The section includes a new How…

Club Soda, the organisation behind the Mindful Drinking Festival, has announced plans to open an alcohol-free off licence in London this December. The pop-up space, on London’s Great Portland street, will open from 13 December to 30 January. The space will host events for “sober and mindful drinking groups, clubs and societies”, Club Soda said, as well as tastings across low and no categories. “Club…

Champagne was the star category in the off-trade over the Christmas and New Year period, latest Nielsen stats show. Sales were up 42% in the week to Boxing Day – compared with the corresponding week in 2019 – and 55% in the week to January 2. The combined sales of other sparkling wines were ahead by 20% in the week to December 26 and 15%…

The online share of grocery sales at UK supermarkets doubled to 12.5% in the last four weeks ending  December 26, 2020. This is up from online’s 6.7% share of sales during the same time in 2019, in what was the biggest December on record, reveals new data released by Nielsen. This rise is due to a total of 8.5million households, just over 30% of all…

Beefsteak Club has been confirmed as one of the sponsors involved in Sky Sport’s coverage of the England versus South Africa one-day international cricket match series. The Ehrmanns-owned wine brand is sponsoring the LED perimeter boards for the matches, which are due to take place in South Africa on December 6, 7 and 9, with an estimated reach of two million UK viewers. The perimeter…