Cost of Spirits to pubs?

Shimshimminy

What are the prices that pubs are actually getting spirits such as tequila, sambuca, vodka in for?

I know excise duty is insane in Ireland but was wondering what they actually make per bottle...

irish_goat

On average, a 35ml shot of gin, vodka or whiskey costs a pub roughly €0.75.

Sambucca and tequila would cost more.

Regardless, the cost of the drink is only a small part of a pub's running costs, they don't make a fortune charging 4 euro per drink,

chucken1

Shimshimminy wrote: »

What are the prices that pubs are actually getting spirits such as tequila, sambuca, vodka in for?

I know excise duty is insane in Ireland but was wondering what they actually make per bottle...

3 fiddy

rubadub

From what posters have said in other threads there is nothing stopping publicans buying from off licences, they could even buy lidl brand vodka and sell it. The only issue for them would be claiming VAT back, which would be easier if from wholesalers -but very often you will see vodka on sale in supermarkets for say €13 per 700ml bottle, while the ex-VAT price is more than that in cash & carries. So very often they could even be better off forgetting the VAT.

We sometimes get "loans" of vodka in our local pub, one of my mates saw the pub manager buying spirits in musgraves once. Another time we gave a smirnoff back to him and he asked what we paid and says he pays more than we did.

When you look at what they could pay for it in offies then pubs make a lot off spirits, there are 19.7 measures in a 700ml bottle. This is why it is more common to see vastly reduced spirits in pubs rather than beer.

the cost of the drink is only a small part of a pub's running costs

This is true, but you can make a comparison against beer profits, though I expect the upkeep of taps, lines, glasses etc is more. Some other thread had prices pubs pay for kegs.

There is nothing to stop them buying cans from supermarkets and selling them on either -but people seem to have a weird irrational view of cans in pubs, many people would drink from a can no bother at home or at a BBQ, but would not dream of doing it in a pub.

Shimshimminy

Cheers for the feedback, yeah pubs seem to be insanely secretive about what they pay for spirits in general, I'm guessing that this is because they all are getting different prices off their suppliers and don't want the pub down the road to know what they're getting it for!

The excise duty in Ireland is very sickening though, roughly 7 times the EU average: duty on 70cl at 40%abv: Ireland - 7.6%, France 2.8%, Italy 1.6%, UK 5.5%... and it's done on a sliding scale in Ireland dependent on the abv%.... #screwedupthebuminireland !!!

rubadub

Shimshimminy wrote: »

The excise duty in Ireland is very sickening though, roughly 7 times the EU average: duty on 70cl at 40%abv: Ireland - 7.6%, France 2.8%, Italy 1.6%, UK 5.5%... and it's done on a sliding scale in Ireland dependent on the abv%.... #screwedupthebuminireland !!!

Not sure what you mean by 7.6% for Ireland, it is a sliding scale as you say, as excise duty is nothing to do with the price of the product, but it is based on 1L of theoretically pure spirits. So 60% vodka has twice the duty as 30% vodka.

Geuze

Excise duty on spirits in Ireland is 31.13 per litre of alcohol in the spirits.

See here:

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/excise/duties/excise-duty-rates.html

So that's 12.45 per litre of 40% strength.

So that's 8.72 per 70cl bottle at 40%.

For each 35.5ml shot, it's 44.2 cent.

Geuze

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageExcise_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_031160&propertyType=document


UK spirits excise duty is 25.52 stg per litre of pure alcohol.

That's 36 pence approx per 35.5ml shot at 40%.

That's about 40 cent.

Geuze

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/excise_duties/alcoholic_beverages/rates/index_en.htm

Here are alcohol excise rates across the EU as of Jan 2011.

We seem to have the third highest spirits excise, the UK seem to be in fourth place.

Blisterman

Is there any truth to the rumour of pubs buying cheap LIDL brand vodka and gin and putting it in the Smirnoff and Gordons optics? Apparently it's perfectly legal as long as people ask for "Vodka and Coke" or "Gin and Tonic", though that's "man in the pub" talk.

lamoss

This sort of thing has always gone on in the pub trade, unless you are an expert on gin or vodka its hard to tell the difference.

Some publicans go up the North to buy wines and spirits as it is cheaper then going though a drinks wholesaler in the South. I have seen a few publicans as well buying boxes of miller in Dunnes when it is on offer and selling it behind the bar .

I remember a story told to me years ago by a friend who worked in a pub in London. This particular pub at the time would have a display in the bar of many scotch whiskys.....must have been about 50 or more. Most of them were the same whisky, the landlord use to top up the bottles with "House whisky" Bonnie Charlie.......This was in the 1970s. My friend said that nobody ever complained and thought they were been sophisicated by ordering up a rare malt ! which in fact was Watneys house whisky

I worked in bars in Dublin, Vienna, Cork, London and the Isle of Man for over ten years and not once have I seen a smirnoff or any other spirit being 'topped up' with another cheaper brand.
I have seen bars buy from supermarkets (bottled beers) and customers and staff have sometimes borrowed bottles of beer or bottles of spirits and replaced them with store bought items the next day.
But I really think that this idea of replacing premium spirits with inferior product is just an urban legend.

Corsendonk

Deleted User wrote: »

I worked in bars in Dublin, Vienna, Cork, London and the Isle of Man for over ten years and not once have I seen a smirnoff or any other spirit being 'topped up' with another cheaper brand.
I have seen bars buy from supermarkets (bottled beers) and customers and staff have sometimes borrowed bottles of beer or bottles of spirits and replaced them with store bought items the next day.
But I really think that this idea of replacing premium spirits with inferior product is just an urban legend.

A good friend worked as a barman in a nightclub about 10 years ago , they use to do the urban legend of refilling the smirnoff with one of the cheaper vodka brands. I am sure the company that distributes sells the smirrnof knows something is up when the sales start to decline sharply to that pub or club.

the beer revolu

Blisterman wrote: »

Is there any truth to the rumour of pubs buying cheap LIDL brand vodka and gin and putting it in the Smirnoff and Gordons optics? Apparently it's perfectly legal as long as people ask for "Vodka and Coke" or "Gin and Tonic", though that's "man in the pub" talk.

It is not legal to pass off one product as another.
It is perfectly legal to sell Lidl or any other cheap brand spirit as 'Vodka' (provided it is Vodka) as long as it isn't masquerading as something it's not.
It is also perfectly legal for a pub to sell shop bought beer or anything else.

It is, however, highly illegal to buy 'up North' (or anywhere else) and to sell it here without going through the proper excise and duty channels necessary to import alcohol for sale. A pub in Cork, named after a GAA player, was prosecuted for doing this.

yknaa

A Powers in Mulligans in Dublin is a Fr. Matthew-friendly price of €4.25. Is this an average price? Did not realise it is so expensive.

rubadub

lamoss wrote: »

This sort of thing has always gone on in the pub trade, unless you are an expert on gin or vodka its hard to tell the difference

Most getting vodka are mixing it so it would be hard. Many people would rate cheaper lidl vodka as being better than smirnoff red.

Deleted User wrote: »

But I really think that this idea of replacing premium spirits with inferior product is just an urban legend.

I certainly don't think it is a legend, it is very easily done. It happens with beer too, switched kegs and counterfeit brands.

http://www.thehagueonline.com/headlines/2010-02-17/fake-beer-in-amsterdam-bars

Fake Beer in Amsterdam Bars
(Wed 17 February 2010)

Customers in Amsterdam bars and restaurants have a 50 percent chance of being served an unknown brand of beer instead of the one they have ordered. The beer comes from taps with the name of Heineken and other well-known brands. This saves bar owners up to 50 euro a cask, according to a report in the newspaper Het Parool.

The anonymous beers are known in the wholesale trade as Moos, JWG, Horecabier or Olm and come from breweries with overcapacity in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The report in Het Parool says that some 60 percent of catering establishments are guilty of this trick.

http://www.beijingboyce.com/2010/01/07/counterfeit-booze-in-beijing-china-daily-fake-beer-and-you/

In a recent raid on a rented house in Wuliqiao village, officers found four men making counterfeit beer that they hoped to pass off as Budweiser, Corona and Carlsberg.

The men were filling empty foreign beer bottles with Chinese beer and resealing them using a bottle-capping machine. Officers seized more than 10 boxes of adulterated beer.

They said Chaoyang is known as a base of fake beer makers.

In 2007, an adulterated beer production workshop raided in Chaoyang contained 7,000 boxes of phony foreign beer….

In 2009, the team handled about 15 cases related to the production of adulterated liquor, including beer, Chinese white wine and foreign wine.

http://www.kerryman.ie/news/fake-vodka-sold-in-club-2663495.html

THE former owner of a popular Tralee nightclub where counterfeit vodka was sold has been fined at Tralee District Court.

Kenmare businessman Declan Ryan who has an address at Killaha West, Kenmare was prosecuted by the DPP acting on behalf of Revenue for selling counterfeit alcohol at Benners Hotel Tralee on August 22, 2009.

The court heard that on the night in question, Revenue Officer, Richard Cantillon, went to the Deacon Nightclub at Benner's Hotel where he checked the sprits on sale at the bar.

During the course of his inspection he seized four bottles, labelled as Smirnoff. These were sent to the state laboratory for tests.

These tests revealed that the bottles actually contained "counterfeit" vodka, which was not consistent with EU regulations.

The court heard the "fake" vodka had an alcohol by volume reading of 33 per cent compared with the 40 per cent proof alcohol level that real Smirnoff should normally contain.

During the search, a bottle of Powers Gold Label Whiskey with a UK tax stamp was also discovered and seized.

Mr Cantillon told the court that when he spoke to Declan Ryan about his suspicion son the night Mr Ryan told him that he would "look into the matter" and that he only got stock from regular suppliers."

Declan Ryan, who is no longer involved with Benner's Hotel or the Deacon nightclub, pleaded guilty to the offence.

Mr Ryan's solicitor said his client was simply an employee of the company, which owned the hotel and nightclub at the time of the offence.

Solicitor Ed O'Sullivan for the DPP countered that when the offence occurred, Mr Ryan was listed as a director and secretary of Benners Hotel Tralee Limited, the company that operated the hotel before it went into liquidation in March 2010.

Mr Ryan, who has no previous convictions, was fined €2,500 and given 18 months to pay the fine.

http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/its-the-ira-plc-276073.html

ALCOHOL In the past three weeks, an illegal distillery was discovered in the Cooley Peninsula with 1,500 litres of ethyl alcohol and 200 litres of reduced spirit for bottling. Another distillery was found in north Dublin since the start of this year. The Organised Crime Task Force estimates the revenue lost in Britain from alcohol fraud at stg£600m (?870m).

The IRA has mimicked the formula for Smirnoff Red Label, recycling bottles and printing false labels for distribution. The cost to the Irish Exchequer on one bottle of counterfeit Smirnoff is about ?15.

You can google and find a fair few cases of watered down & fake vodkas in Ireland