Tuesday, May 24, 2016

A little bit of a wine

One of the early adjustments we had to make in moving to Canada was the steep price of alcohol compared to the UK. Forget the exchange rate, when you compare prices against disposable income I reckon it’s at least double in real terms.

It was a benefit that we both ended up drinking far less - and with the more relaxed lifestyle here, feeling the need to drink far less, too.

All the same, we like our wine, so we started making use of the local U-brew businesses and bottling our own batches. We’ve just bottled a batch of red and one of white this year, now sitting pretty in my home-made wine rack. Looks like we’re all set for the summer :)


7 comments:

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Ian - well done .. that's good husbandry .. making your own and being prepared for having a bottle to hand when needed. I still buy - but hold back now ... as it's so full of sugar - at least yours you'll have control over.

Cheers Hilary

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

That's cool you can brew your own. And nice job on the wine rack!

Crystal Collier said...

There you go. Way to adjust! If we drank, I imagine I'd be tempted to do the same thing. Since we don't our money probably goes to kids clothes and cheese. I mean, who can complain about that, eh? ;)

Botanist said...

Hilary, we used to be happy buying, alongside regular groceries. UK supermarkets gained a good reputation for bringing in good quality cheap wine so no problem. Very different market here.

Alex, I'm very proud of our wine rack :)

Crystal, cheese (and dairy in general) was another big shock. You'd be in cheesy heaven in Europe.

klahanie said...

Hi Ian,

Here I am typing from the UK at gone three in the morning.

Nice wine rack and brewing your own will sure save loads. Although, good sir, I thought you were underage to be consuming alcoholic beverages.

Have a good weekend, eh.

Gary

bazza said...

Hi Ian. I am really surprised that alcohol could possibly be more expensive than in the UK. I am assuming that cheese and wine events are a scarcity in Canada! I think I drank mostly beer while I was there.
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s fabulous Blog ‘To Discover Ice’

Botanist said...

Gary, you flatterer you :)

Bazza, I used to reckon on getting a very drinkable wine off the supermarket shelf for maybe 3 to 4 pounds. A cheap bottle here is more like $10. That doesn't sound like much difference when you take the exchange rate into account, but that's misleading. My monthly take-home pay here was about the same in $$ as my previous take-home was in pounds, so you can see the comparative difference in terms of disposable income.

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