OREANDA-NEWS. On 04 May 2009 was announced, that Belarus’ vodka and hard liquor output increased 6.2% on the year in January-March to 3.7 million decaliters, an official with Belarus’ National Statistics Committee told.

In the period, cognac output amounted to 70,000 decaliters, up 66.7% on the year. “Cognac” is a name used to denote a type of brandy in the former Soviet Union.

Belarus’ output of grape wines decreased 15.3% on the year to 461,000 decaliters, and the output of fruit wines decreased 15.6% to 4.1 million decaliters. The output of sparkling wines went up 3.2% on the year in the period to 288,000 decaliters.

Vodka sales increased 3.7% on the year in January-March to 2.603 million decaliters. Sales of other hard drinks rose 12.8% to 277,000 decaliters, sales of grape wines went down 5.5% on the year to 546,000 decaliters.

Sales of cognac went down 13% to 54,000 decaliters, sales of sparkling wines increased 1.3% on the year to 252,000 decaliters. Sales of fruit wines fell 11.1% to 3.444 million decaliters.

The share of vodka in the sales of alcoholic beverages [in absolute alcohol terms on April 1] in Belarus rose to 49.9% in January-March from 47.4% in January-March 2008. The share of other hard drinks rose 0.5 percentage points to 4%. The share of grape wines in alcohol sales edged down 0.1 percentage points to 3.7%.

Fruit wine sales share decreased 3.2 percentage points, still remaining high at 29.7%.

The share of cognac edged down 0.1 percentage point to 1% and of sparkling wines remained unchanged at 1.3%.