DIX­IE-ANN DICK­SON

With con­sumers now cling­ing to every dol­lar to deal with the lin­ger­ing ef­fects of the glob­al eco­nom­ic down­turn, they seem to be will­ing to part with at least $25 to pur­chase a cock­tail drink and sim­i­lar al­co­holic bev­er­ages. This is ac­cord­ing to Trevor Pas­cal, bar­tender and shift leader at the pop­u­lar Zanz­ibar restau­rant at the Fi­es­ta Vil­lage, Movi­eTowne at In­vaders' Bay in Port-of-Spain. Al­co­hol sales at sev­er­al bars and restau­rants through­out the coun­try have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar trends, with a few mi­nor dif­fer­ences. Pas­cal said the fi­nan­cial down­turn has not re­al­ly im­pact­ed neg­a­tive­ly on con­sumers' drink­ing habits, but it has just changed the way they spend their mon­ey.

Pas­cal said that about nine months ago, the more ex­pen­sive drinks like scotch and whisky, were the num­ber one sell­ers, but that trend has changed. These sales have fall­en be­low av­er­age. On week­ends, which nowa­days start on Thurs­days, con­sumers are now pur­chas­ing cock­tails and rum, he said. Yes, rum! He said con­sumers have been sup­port­ing lo­cal rum prod­ucts, An­gos­tu­ra's new Sin­gle Bar­rel. This is a hit on the mar­ket, Pas­cal said. He de­scribed it as af­ford­able, very smooth and palat­able. De­scrib­ing it as dis­guised liquor, Pas­cal said he is not a lover of rum, but he has to ad­mit this new prod­uct's pop­u­lar­i­ty is grow­ing. He said it drinks like a co­gnac and is bet­ter than tra­di­tion­al al­co­holic bev­er­ages.

Pas­cal said cock­tails have be­come an­oth­er big sell­er. This trend begs the ques­tion: How can cock­tails be a big sell­er if con­sumers were grav­i­tat­ing to cheap­er drinks? Pas­cal ex­plained that a cock­tail and the ice-cream drinks had greater quan­ti­ty, so while it may be more on the ex­pen­sive side, con­sumers would have few­er cock­tails as op­posed to oth­er al­co­holic bev­er­ages. He said a pa­tron may some­times con­sume on­ly two cock­tails for the night. Con­sumers may be spend­ing some of their hard-earned dol­lars on pricey cock­tails at the ex­pense of bar­tenders' tips. "Our tips for each night have re­duced. Work­ers are go­ing away with less mon­ey," Pas­cal said.

Over­all sales

Giv­ing a more gen­er­al overview on the din­ing out busi­ness, Gi­gio Omana, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Zanz­ibar, said the restau­rant has ex­pe­ri­enced a 20 per cent de­cline in over­all sales: food and drinks. He said that com­pared to No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber 2009, sales have slowed down sig­nif­i­cant­ly. He is hop­ing that sales pick up very soon. Omana said from May to ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, (hol­i­days) are usu­al­ly their busiest pe­ri­ods. He be­lieved that since the leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing drink­ing and dri­ving was passed a year ago, con­sumers were be­hav­ing more re­spon­si­bly and, as a con­se­quence, are watch­ing how much al­co­hol they were con­sum­ing. He said when pa­trons come to dine, they grav­i­tate to­ward cock­tail drinks, like mar­ti­nis, mo­ji­to and Long Is­land iced tea. Omana said the restau­rant fo­cus­es on push­ing its di­verse dish­es while us­ing the bar as a com­ple­ment to its fine foods, which in­clude Amer­i­can, French and Ital­ian dish­es.

Su­per­mar­ket sales

Con­verse­ly, the sale of al­co­holic bev­er­ages at the su­per­mar­kets is dif­fer­ent. Amar Ra­goo­bar, the man­ag­er of Prices Su­per­mar­ket in El Do­ra­do, said his cus­tomers are pur­chas­ing the more ex­pen­sive drinks. He said con­sumers are buy­ing al­co­hol like scotch. An­oth­er big sell­er at this time is cher­ry brandy, which peo­ple use to soak fruits for the tra­di­tion­al black cake. "My sales have not been af­fect­ed. They are the same be­cause peo­ple are buy­ing the more ex­pen­sive liquor," Ra­goo­bar said.

Spend­ing less on old habits

An­oth­er busi­ness own­er, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said his ex­pe­ri­ence is that con­sumers' spend has been more con­ser­v­a­tive. "Their spend is less....not re­al­ly com­pro­mis­ing what they are drink­ing, but how much they are spend­ing," he said. He said that con­sumers' spend may have dropped by about 50 per cent, which he at­trib­uted to not on­ly the fi­nan­cial down­turn, but al­so to the open­ing of new busi­ness­es and crime. He said there were many new bars and restau­rants in con­cen­trat­ed ar­eas chas­ing the bud­gets of the same peo­ple.

He said a lot of peo­ple no longer ven­ture out due to the in­crease in crime, pre­fer­ring to stay in their own area and pa­tro­n­ise neigh­bour­hood bars. He al­so be­lieved that peo­ple are not chang­ing their tastes, but rather down­grad­ing to more af­ford­able brands. He said he be­lieved that once a per­son is a scotch drinker, they would re­main one and buy an af­ford­able brand of whisky. In­tro­duc­tion of the breathal­yser leg­is­la­tion has led to con­sumers drink­ing less and be­ing more re­spon­si­ble in how they drink al­co­hol.?