Choices 15 Festive Drinks

Season's Greetings come with a tipple or two... What where do those tipples come from and what impacts do they have? We talked about the festive / holiday season last year, in season 1. Not being able to meet up with family due to COVID made us focus more on the true gifts of spending time, showing love and support rather than spending money, buying the next toy, indulging in festive spending perhaps even beyond our means. All that is still valid this year - including COVID (omicron) postponing in-person reunions. But wherever we are, at least in the UK, there is an increase in alcohol consumption during this time of the year. They do say ‘don’t drink to drown your sorrows, they know how to swim’ and the same applies to considering (if not worrying) about our environmental impacts. As usual, we are not interested in telling anyone to drink or not, or what to drink. We want to explore how to become more discerning customers - what to look for when trying to buy alcoholic drinks? Is it better to buy local, if their production is dirtier? How about packaging? How about certification? Again as usual, let's use the power of our enquiry and money - what information should we demand from producers and retailers? And about much more - all about wine, and whisky, but with lessons for all other tipples too, we spoke to Dagmar Droogsma