The hard stuff is growing in popularity.
The report, The Drinks Market Performance 2018, authored by Dublin City University economist Anthony Foley and commissioned by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) suggests that Irish people are drinking more and more spirits.
Beer is not only just the nation’s most popular alcoholic drink, but it’s also gone up in popularity compared to 2017. It makes up a 45.2% share of the alcohol product market last year, an increase of 2.7% in the volume of beer consumed in 2018.
According to the report, spirits made up a 20.5% share of the alcohol product market in 2018, a 5.6% increase compared to the previous year. Wine was the only category to decrease, falling slightly by 2% to an overall share of 26.7 per cent. While this might sound bad for wine, its share has actually doubled since 2001.
The National Alcohol Diary Survey, conducted in 2014, suggested that more than half (54%) of 18-75 year old drinkers were classified as harmful drinkers which equates to 1.35 million harmful drinkers in Ireland.
It also suggested that 75% of all alcohol consumed in Ireland in 2013 was done so as part of a binge drinking session.
Per capita alcohol consumption in Ireland was 11.46 litres of pure alcohol per person aged 15+ in 2016 (revised: 11.15, reflecting revision of population estimate, 2017), an increase of 4.8% from 2015, when it was 10.93 litres (revised: 10.69, reflecting revision of population estimate, 2017), according to Alcohol Ireland.
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