The greenest booze brand of them all?

By: Chris Mercer - 2 September 2010 17:19

What is the most environmentally-friendly booze brand? Is it the Scotch dram, the Fairtrade Chilean wine or that bottle of locally-brewed beer that you bought in a fit of adventurism? One prominent newspaper is seeking your views.

The Guardian newspaper has been running an interactive debate all week on the most eco-friendly alcoholic drink, prompted by a reader question on the subject.

We are promised answers from the newspaper's gurus tomorrow (3 September) on all things environmental. In terms of sheer size, the world's largest known Irish Coffee should be a strong contender for the least eco-friendly. Or, there's the world's largest beer can. Alternatively, China could sneak in there with its claim to have built a 15ft bottle of wine. Those Chinese; it always has to be bigger, doesn't it?

The point is, any of these would do just as well as anything else. That's because the number of different factors involved make it almost impossible to choose the 'greenest' drink.

I wonder if the Guardian journalists will agree with what they themselves wrote back in 2006. This essentially boiled down to 'buy local', or just go for a drink with people who care about the environment.

Comments on this blog post

Smile The greenest booze in the world? Brazilian Cachaça bottled for domestic market in fully recyclabe,returnable bottles, with fully recyclable returnable non reffilable fitments, distributed in returnable plastic crates...in the production plants the Cane
bagasse is reutilized as fuel for the boilers...most cane spirits/Cachaça industrial 24 hours daily function for 8 months per year and during this time contribute electric energy to the distribution system in Brazil. Shocking news for the Scotch industry... Big smile