Shal­iza Has­sanali

Rum lovers will now have to dig deep­er in­to their pock­ets. Like the prover­bial thief in the night, An­gos­tu­ra Ltd–lo­cal dis­tillers of White Oak, Black La­bel, For­res Park and Roy­al Oak, core rums–in­creased prices by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 per cent last week. AS Bry­den and Sons Ltd, agent for El Do­ra­do Rum jacked up its price be­tween 17 and 18 per cent on Wednes­day.

Yes­ter­day, Carib Brew­ery Ltd man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Derek Wad­dell con­firmed that the pop­u­lar dry stout, Guin­ness, in­creased from $163 to $183 per case a few days ago, due to the "in­crease of roy­al­ties and hops." The re­tail cost of a Guin­ness is now be­tween $14 and $15.

But while Wad­dell val­i­dat­ed the in­crease of one al­co­holic bev­er­age, some drinkers com­plained yes­ter­day that the re­tail prices of Carib and Stag had jumped from $9 to $10 at wa­ter­ing holes from Thurs­day. Mack­e­son and Roy­al Ex­tra al­so moved from $13 to $14 a bot­tle.

Wad­dell said he had no idea why pub own­ers were in­creas­ing the prices of the oth­er al­co­holic drinks. "There is ab­solute­ly no rea­son that they should be."

No in­creas­es com­ing from Carib

Wad­dell said Carib Brew­ery has no in­ten­tion of in­creas­ing its line of al­co­holic bev­er­ages as the Christ­mas sea­son ap­proach­es. Mean­while, Jose Nivet, sec­tor head, dis­tri­b­u­tion and ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Al­stons Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, al­so gave the as­sur­ance that it would not in­crease the prices of its Bac­ar­di and Ap­ple­ton Es­tate rums. The price ad­just­ments come 14 months af­ter then fi­nance min­is­ter, Karen Tesheira an­nounced in the 2010 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, a 15 per cent in­crease in the ex­cise du­ty on lo­cal­ly man­u­fac­tured beer, rum and al­co­hol prod­ucts.

An­drew Chang, man­ag­er of Chang Broth­ers Liquor Store and Su­per­mar­ket in Mara­bel­la, said the re­tail price of a case of White Oak and Black La­bel rums jumped from $858 to $965 last week. The sug­gest­ed price for a 750ml bot­tle is $89.99. Chang said the high­ly con­sumed For­res Park pun­cheon rum has sky­rock­et­ed from $1,125 to $1,286. A bot­tle now costs $119.99. The pop­u­lar Roy­al Oak rum has risen from $1,052 to $1,186 per case. Chang said the sug­gest­ed price is $109 a bot­tle.

El Do­ra­do rum, man­u­fac­tured in Ja­maica, will now cost rough­ly be­tween $65 and $70 a bot­tle, as op­posed to the $55 to $60 rum lovers used to pay, AS Bry­den group prod­uct man­ag­er Ja­son Charles said.

Laronde-West: In­crease in cost of raw ma­te­ri­als

On Thurs­day, Giselle Laronde-West, pub­lic re­la­tions man­ag­er of An­gos­tu­ra, blamed the 12 per cent in­crease on the sig­nif­i­cant changes in the cost of raw ma­te­ri­als, main­ly mo­lasses, the main el­e­ment of the rum mak­ing process. The price of mo­lasses, which is sourced out­side of T&T, went up by 35 per cent, Laronde-West ex­plained.

"We no longer get mo­lasses in Trinidad," she re­vealed. Asked what has been the re­sponse from cus­tomers and buy­ers Laronde-West said: "We have not had any is­sues."

Last No­vem­ber, An­gos­tu­ra in­creased some of its spir­its by just over six per cent be­cause of changes in pro­duc­tion costs. Charles said AS Bry­den has been in­form­ing cus­tomers for a while of the price in­crease for El Do­ra­do rum. "We have not in­creased our prices in two years."

Charles could not say if the in­crease will have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on sales. "We would just have to wait and see." Charles shied away from say­ing if the pre­mier John­ny Walk­er scotch will in­crease be­fore Christ­mas. "I can't an­swer that for sure," he added. Charles ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that when the price of one type of al­co­holic bev­er­age goes up the oth­ers are like­ly to fol­low. "Yes, this hap­pens some­times. If there is go­ing to be an in­crease in oth­er spir­its it won't be sig­nif­i­cant."

Al­co­hol prices

�2 White Oak and Black La­bel $965 per case/bot­tle $89.99

�2 For­res Park Pun­cheon $1286 per case/ bot­tle $119

�2 Roy­al Oak $1186 case/bot­tle $109.99

�2 El Do­ra­do rum $65-$70 bot­tle

�2 Guin­ness $183 case/$14 to $15 a bot­tle.

Drinkers un­fazed... it's a ne­ces­si­ty

Clutch­ing a bot­tle of For­res Park rum at Ryan's Bar, Prince Street, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Nehru Ram­per­sad said the new prices will not stop him from con­sum­ing his liquor. "I love meh rum. I used to pay $12 for a shot of pun­cheon, now I pay­ing $13. That is some­thing? "Drink­ing is now a ne­ces­si­ty for some peo­ple. You can't stop peo­ple from tak­ing a drink af­ter a hard day's work to re­lieve stress."

Murchi­son Men­doza said he was tak­en by sur­prise with the new prices, ar­gu­ing that the pub­lic was al­ways the last to know. "But all in all, peo­ple will cry about the prices but at the end of the day that ain't stop­ping them from hit­ting the bot­tle."