By Stuart Gregor.

Okay. So I’m a bit cross about this continuing flood of misinformation about booze and tax. Tax and booze. So here I go again. Maybe grab a drink before you take a read – I’m fired up.

Let’s start with the obvious conflicts.

I’m a distiller, well I don’t actually make the stuff but I part-own a joint that does. I’ve been peddling booze in some shape or another for the best part of 20 years – that includes beer, wine, spirits and cider. I’ve been intoxicated more than once before and have acted like a clown in public and in private, under the influence and as sober as a judge.

I’ve seen alcohol impact lives of people close to me in a very negative way; I’ve regularly wondered whether my drinking and my working so closely in the industry is a poor choice – whether I should do something more positive in society. But it doesn’t take very long for me to think again.

The distillery where we make Four Pillars gin has a bar that is open on average 60 hours per week, 363 days per year. We have had more than 50,000 visitors since we opened in late 2015. There have been no reported stoushes, not a single issue with drunken behaviour or a single arrest for drink-driving. Sure, we’ve sent a few people on their way with wise counsel and much caution, but we have served 30,000 gin and tonic paddles without incident. It’s a wonderful, social, clever, inclusive place – and I bloody love it and am incredibly proud of it.

I am the President of the Australian Distillers Association, so my allegiances are obvious. I also work in the field of marketing and PR so know a thing or two about how to spin a story and massage some facts to suit my purposes.

So BEWARE. I might just be the Devil in Disguise.

However, unlike many people who have an opinion about booze, I’m not pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not in disguise. I’m out and I’m proud. Proud to work in an industry I love.

But here’s the thing, and right now my top is about to blow. In the words of Peter Finch, I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

The demonisation of booze; its producers, sellers, marketers and drinkers by an INCREDIBLY small group of folks who wish Prohibition back upon us is simply TOO BLOODY MUCH.

Believe it or not, there are people – unusually loud, ill-informed people, on the fringes of our moderate society who want to stop good, decent people having fun and a drink. God knows why, but they do.

First, let’s get this right. Australia is NOT a booze-filled, alcohol-enraged nation of piss-heads.

Maybe we were once upon a time, but we sure as hell are not now. Per capita consumption of alcohol in Australia right now is at a 50 year LOW. That’s a fact.* It’s not double what it was a decade ago as quoted in several recent reports. That’s a complete and utter fabrication.

And alcohol tax isn’t too low, in fact it’s incredibly high. It’s just badly weighted between beer, wine and spirits. That should be perfectly simple for ANYBODY to understand, even a politician if they have stepped into one bar and purchased one drink any time in the past decade…

Let’s keep it simple.

Beer is probably taxed about right, cheap wine too low (particularly the oft-abused large format casks) and spirits too high. But again, you’d expect me to say that – I’m a distiller after all.

Except it’s EXACTLY what EVERY single report, study or senate committee has found over the past 15 years. Even (and god help me here) the ANTI-ALCOHOL lobby, the nanny-staters, the neo-prohibitionists and the lunatics who think booze is the new cigarettes agree on that one. Go on. Ask them.

Moderate consumption of alcohol is not a bad thing – even doctors say it can be good for you. The industry employs around 165,000 people directly and indirectly through all its channels. It pays more than $5billion in taxes to the government coffers and heaven forbid it adds some colour and flavour to many people’s lives. And it tries really hard to act responsibly because it is important to do so. And also we know, all too well, that we are always being watched – so more often than not we are on our best behaviour.

But like everything that could do us harm; gambling, driving, crossing the road whilst listening to podcasts, sky-diving, surfing with sharks, snowboarding, crowdsurfing at a dance party, lunching with an NRL player or executive, flying a plane, and many more daily activities, it needs to be approached with just a little bit of old-school sensible-ness. Maybe even wariness.

We do not want to strip all that is fun from the fabric of Australian society. Or do we?

Did you know it was already too dangerous in Sydney to drink a negroni after midnight? And that’s a FACT. Did you know a single malt whisky and a few ice cubes is not considered an acceptable beverage at a five star hotel after an event if it ends a minute past midnight?

Can you imagine what a 'normal', non-violent, alcohol drinking human from anywhere else on this planet might think of these rules?

I don’t actually mind sensible restrictions on advertising and promotion. I even think a few initiatives over the past few years have helped us moderate our drinking culture to where it is becoming a “less but better” approach. And yes, I recognise that alcohol abuse continues to cost our society too much.

But enough is enough. I don’t need some wally from Canberra telling me when, where and how I can have my fun. I don’t need my bottle of gin to be twice the price in Healesville (where it is made) than in Los Angeles, simply because our local tax system is a shambles.

And I don’t need to be told that the booze industry is an evil empire run by alcoholic svengalis trying to coerce you into getting drunk. Because it’s bullsh*t.

You don’t want to drink? Good on you. No dramas here. As it happens, I have quite a few mates who don’t drink or do so incredibly rarely. But I have quite a few more who do. And do it sensibly – most of the time. And that should be good enough for the do-gooders to cut us a break.

Here’s a deal. I won’t come to any of your preachy, anti-alcohol, fun-police chats if you don’t come to my bar.

*In 2015, Australians drank on average 9.71L of pure alcohol per capita; in 1975 that number was 13.1L. These figures are from the World Health Organisation. This number puts us around No.20 in the world for per capita booze consumption surrounded by nations like Spain, Switzerland, New Zealand, Great Britain and Denmark. And yes, I acknowledge this figure is well ahead of Indonesia who drink the least in the world.

Stuart Gregor is the co-founder of Four Pillars Gin and President of the Australian Distillers Association.

Any opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author.

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