Vodka vs. Fortified Wine in Russia: Retrospective View

It is pointed out in the article by Razvodovsky (2015), encompassing the period 1970–2013, that vodka has been a predominant form of alcohol consumed in Russia and the former Soviet Union (SU). It should be commented that fortified wines (alcohol concentration around 17–19% by volume) were massively produced and sold till 1986–1987. There are no reliable statistics but it is obvious for an inside observer that, especially in the period between the two anti-alcohol campaigns (1972–1985), the part taken by the fortified wines was considerable, being larger than that of vodka at least in some parts of the country. According to the author's observations, in Moscow, fortified wines constituted a greater part of the consumed alcohol during that period than vodka; so it was also in many other regions. This proportion was largely preserved also during the anti-alcohol campaign (1985–1988), when vodka price doubled, but relatively cheap wines were still available, acknowledging that their quality worsened and there were long queues at bottle stores.

In 1972, the sales of vodka and other spirits on Sundays and between 7 p.m. and 11 a.m. on all other days were prohibited. However, after 7 p.m. till the closing of shops at 8–10 p.m., and on Sundays, fortified and other wines were sold. Some fortified wines were poor quality, resulting in more severe intoxications and hangovers than vodka. The cheapest fortified wine was named in vernacular ‘bormotukha’—the mumbler. It acted stupefying; intoxicated individuals sometimes mumbled indeed and lost control over their speech and actions. It was obviously caused by poor-quality alcohol, i.e. substances other than ethanol occurring naturally in alcoholic beverages (Rohsenow and Howland, 2010) or additives. The poor quality of the added distilled alcohol was masked by the taste of wine and/or (increasingly since the 1980s) by artificial aromas. In practice, workers who finished work at around 5 p.m., considering that there were usually queues in the bottle stores, started drinking vodka often at the workplace but continued with fortified wines or consumed the latter only. It was general knowledge among drinkers that it is not advisable to consume fortified wine after vodka: it often brought about more severe intoxications, vomiting, detentions by the police, sleeping down in public places, etc. At the same time, 0.25 l vodka bottles disappeared almost completely, replaced by 0.5 l bottles. For aged alcoholics in particular, it was preferable to purchase a 0.25 l bottle of vodka after work and to go home: after that he or she would wake up next morning in a better condition for the next workday. Instead, they often continued with poor-quality fortified wines, which caused deeper intoxications, being associated with higher health-related and social risks. This was a foreseeable consequence of the anti-alcohol measures of 1972.

Why the massive consumption of fortified wine in the former SU especially during the period 1972–1988 is veiled in some literature? Apparently, for two reasons. First, some of the cheap fortified wines or wine surrogates were obviously more toxic than vodka. We observed conditions of marked mental confusion after consumption of poor-quality fortified wines. It is obviously easier to add poor-quality alcohol to those red or brownish fluids with different tastes and flavors, than to the rather standard product such as vodka. Some cheapest wines, notoriously ‘Solntsedar’ (by all accounts produced from Algerian raw materials) as well as some Algerian (according to the label) non-fortified wines were noticed to provoke vomit.

Another fact, disguised from the general public today, is that somewhat more expensive fortified wines were, in general, natural products: they were made from grapes or fruit by fermentation with addition of distilled alcohol. If manufactured according to the standards, some of these products were acceptable quality. Obviously, their production according to the standards turned out to be too expensive after the transition to the market economy during the early 1990s. It was one of the paradoxes of the communist economy: the cost price of fortified wines, produced according to the standards, was higher than that of vodka, but they were sold at a cheaper price than vodka (expressed in terms of pure alcohol). Vodka was a beverage with some niveau: its cheaper equivalent especially in rural areas and small towns was samogon (moonshine). For example, at some country weddings, the first glass poured out was vodka, and after that samogon was abundantly consumed. Popular fortified wines disappeared around 1990; while some of their names and labels have continued to be used for selling of surrogates containing poor-quality alcohol, dyestuff and aromas (Jargin, 2010a). After the anti-alcohol campaign, the alcohol consumption rapidly increased, with vodka forming a larger share in the total (Ryan, 1995), having partly replaced wine (WHO, 2011).

Furthermore, the statement ‘a brief Andropov's anti-alcohol campaign in the early 1980s resulted in a decline in alcohol sales’ (Razvodovsky, 2015) is surprising for insiders: some anti-alcohol rhetoric could be heard all the time; but during the period of Andropov's leadership (1982–1984) vodka became cheaper. The 1972 anti-alcohol measures are not mentioned in the article by Razvodovsky (2015). In the author's opinion, Fig. 1 by Razvodovsky (2015) is unrealistic. The sales of wine must have been relatively higher than shown on the graph till approximately 1988; besides, in 1972 there must have been a significant decrease in vodka and an increase in wine sales (discussed above). Figure 2 is also questionable: we have not noticed such a marked decrease in alcohol consumption during 1995–2000 as shown on the graph; a decrease in legal alcohol sales after the inflation bout in 1998 was probably in part compensated by moonshine and non-beverage alcohol; so that there would be no reasons to await such a slump in the incidence of alcohol psychoses as it is shown in Fig. 2.

The phrase ‘The harm indicator series used was alcohol psychosis incidence rate because this indicator depends almost entirely on alcohol consumption’ (Razvodovsky, 2014a) should be commented. The alcohol psychosis rate may reflect the total alcohol consumption level in countries with a stable quality of alcoholic beverages but not in Russia, where quality of alcohol worsened around 1990 and has been gradually improving since approximately the last decade. Comparisons with Poland (Wald and Jaroszewski, 1983), made by Razvodovsky (2015), are not entirely valid, the more so, as far as we know, in Poland there was no massive consumption of fortified wines comparable to that in the former SU. The probability of occurrence of alcoholic psychoses may depend on the quality of consumed drinks (Alesin and Egorov, 2011). Psychosis-like conditions can be induced not only by ethanol but also by other substances in alcoholic beverages. Besides, it is known that psychoses have sometimes been overdiagnosed in the former SU (Jargin, 2010b). The statements like ‘vodka preference was associated with the consumption of bigger doses of pure ethanol‘ or ‘drinking pattern of spirits users was substantially different from wine or beer users’ (Razvodovsky, 2015) are also misleading: fortified wines were broadly used for heavy binge drinking (e.g. 1.5 l pro person in one sitting); they were often better tolerated than vodka, which in doses around 400–500 ml sometimes provoked vomiting if consumed in a hurry, without appropriate meal and/or without accompanying drink such as beer or Pepsi. With regard to beer, there were not many pure ‘beer users’ at that time: beer was consumed either occasionally (often next morning after a heavy binge) or as an accompanying beverage mostly with vodka or samogon.

Following the abolition of the state alcohol monopoly in 1992, the country was flooded by counterfeit and imported alcohol of low quality (Razvodovsky, 2013a); further details are in Jargin (2010a). It is however essential to distinguish between legally and illegally sold rather than between recorded and unrecorded or ‘undocumented’ (Razvodovsky, 2013a) alcohol because sales of toxic beverages in legally operating shops and kiosks occurred generally with knowledge and sometimes under participation of authorities or their members. Exaggeration of consumption of non-beverage alcohol shifts the responsibility for the poisonings onto the consumers. In this connection, it is incorrect to name falsified vodka ‘non-commercial’ (Razvodovsky, 2013b, 2014b) as it was massively sold through legally operating shops and kiosks. Admittedly, a tendency of quality improvement of legally sold alcohol has been noticed since approximately the last decade. In conclusion, some articles by Razvodovsky (2015) can create biased impression about alcohol policy in the former SU.

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