Booze cruises and chocolate dachshunds

THE VIEW FROM DOWN HERE

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By Päivi Repo
     
      It has been estimated that alcohol consumption in Finland could grow by 10-15% this year, with the removal in January of import restrictions from EU countries, the cutting of tax on domestic sales in March, and now that the European Union is expanding to Finland’s southern doorstep.
      If this wild forecast comes to pass, then each and every one of us will be pouring 11 litres of pure alcohol down our throats next year. This will put Finland close to the top of the global drinking league.
     
On Tuesday of last week, a four-year alcohol programme was instigated to reduce the harm caused by this impending development. At the launch ceremony it was admitted quite openly that no effective measures or tricks exist to stem the tide.
      The method chosen was one of partnership: municipalities, organisations, religious groups, the state administration, and businesses all signed up and promised to work to prevent consumption and ill-effects.
     
Alcohol is a remarkable product. It is present in our daily life and our celebrations, but we do not treat it in the same way as we do other consumer goods that belong to our everydays and holidays.
      The strange aura associated with the demon drink is hard to imagine hovering over other foodstuffs items.
      If, for instance, someone should wheel his or her supermarket trolley up to the check-out piled with a dozen large bags of cheese and onion potato crisps, he would be looked upon as a pathetic problem-case incapable of restraining his appetite for the things. Nobody raises even half an eyebrow at a 12-pack of beer.
      If somebody went and bought a two-wheeled trolley in order to import from Estonia a large carton of bars of Finnish milk chocolate, owing to the substantial price differential between the two countries, he would be regarded as an irresponsible individual who is going to increase society’s health care burden by eating himself into the gross obesity zone. The guy hauling the five 24-packs of Lapin Kulta beer is, by contrast, a hero.
     
If a Finnish confectionery manufacturer were to decorate the sides of a Tallinn bus with images of chocolate bars in order to transport in it travellers from Finland on the short hop between the harbour and the supermarket, people would laugh out loud.
      The factory would not even dream of making 2-kilo megabars for the Finnish candy-tourist market or handy cartons containing a selection of chocolate bars. And these products and services would not be discussed ad nauseam for weeks as has been the case with “kossu on tap”, the “kossu dachshund”, or the “kossubus”.*
     
The attraction of the forbidden fruit has not been dimmed, even though alcohol has become a much more accessible and routine product. The hazards of heavy use are well documented, but the knowledge does not put a brake on things in the same way as with other habits that have been turned in a more healthy direction.
      The educated in particular have steered away from smoking, they eat more healthily, and they take adequate exercise, but at the same time they drink more and more.
     
Booze is also an exception when compared with that other forbidden fruit of bygone days, namely sex. Every year there is a row about scantily-clad models in clothing and lingerie advertisements, with the fear being that children and young people will get a warped image of sexuality.
      It is indeed hard to imagine a similar debate over alcohol. The attention turns to young people only when wide-eyed and legless youths cause a disturbance in a public place. Even at this point, the calls are usually for more (police) supervision; in other words they are directed towards effects rather than cause.
      “Dark” bottles are bought and sold on the street just as sex is, but the trade in illegal liquor does not stir up a national movement in the manner that the sex trade does. And nobody has come out and suggested criminalising the purchase of an under-the-counter bottle of Koskenkorva.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.4.2004
     
Translator’s Note: These expressions may require some glossing. The first thing to clear up is that “kossu” is the familiar term for Koskenkorva , the neutral grain spirit that is the most popular alcoholic beverage in Finland. Hence “kossu on tap” refers to the decision by manufacturers Altia to produce a 2-litre carton of Koskenkorva, similar to the wine-in-a-box packs already on sale in Alko stores in this country, but specifically for sale to Finnish buyers in the Estonian market. The “kossu dachshund”, on the other hand, is a variant on the 12-pack of beer, nicknamed a “dachshund” because of its long narrow shape (2 x 6 bottles or cans in rows), but in this case with ten 50 centilitre bottles of Koskenkorva inside the handy cardboard carrier. Again, it is being aimed at the Finnish tourist market on the Estonian mainland and on “booze cruise” ferries between the two countries. The “kossubus” is a courtesy bus decorated with Koskenkorva bottles and logos, to enable Finnish passengers to make the hop from Tallinn Harbour to their nearest filling station.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Programme aimed at reducing harm of increased alcohol consumption (28.4.2004)
  Record liquor sales in Tallinn stores over weekend as Finns hoard cheap alcohol (3.5.2004)

PÄIVI REPO / Helsingin Sanomat
paivi.repo@hs.fi