Alcohol drink preferences in Iceland have been changing

It is fair knowledge that the Nordic countries except for Denmark (i.e. Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) have their retail liquor stores owned by their governments, and I have written about this before (Why are there wine monopolies in Scandinavia?). In practice, this does not necessarily mean that alcohol sales are restricted, or that there is a poor selection, but simply that the government makes some of the profit (Why is wine often cheaper in Sweden than elsewhere?).

Iceland has in the distant past had a bad situation — indeed, there was apparently once a time when workers were paid (at least partly) in alcohol. Moreover, it is not exactly in a geographical location suitable for vineyards, and it does have miserable weather a lot of the time. So, spirits have historically been the cultural norm, as it was throughout northern Europe . The government has been trying to get things changed, as discussed below.

First, we can look at the relevant data from Statistics Iceland (Alcohol consumption decreased by 4% between years).

You will note from the graph that per capita alcohol consumption has plateaued in recent years, with beer consumption now being equal to wine + spirits combined. However, wine consumption has been greater than spirits since 2003. Good!

Note that there was actually a beer prohibition from 1915 to 1989, and that beer consumption did not pass spirits until 1995. The advertised Icelandic motto is now: Drink good beer with good friends. The government ban had originally been placed on all alcohol, but wine was legalized in 1922; and in 1935 all alcoholic beverages with >2.25% alcohol were legalized, except beer (Wikipedia). Note that the ban on beer had as much to do with independence (from Denmark, which was associated with a preference for beer consumption) as temperance (Why Iceland banned beer; Why beer was once illegal in Iceland).

I was recently in Iceland, and can report on the situation first hand. First, the draft beer is very nice, the local lamb is good, and the fresh fish is excellent. The scenery is superb, which is why there are >2 million tourists per year compared to less than 400,000 locals.

The local liquor stores that I checked out (Vínbúðin = The Wine Shop) were quite small, and had limited selections of wine, which were mostly from western Europe. Indeed, most of the shelves had bottles of Icelandic gin and aquavit. Furthermore, the cheapest US or Australian wines were $US20 for the current vintage, which is hardly cheap. This is apparently because of the taxes (Alcohol tax: Iceland pay the most in Europe).

Finally, I can suggest that vineyards may actually one day appear in Iceland. There are now several absolutely massive glasshouses, growing things that you don't expect, such as tomatoes and bananas (Why the world’s coldest country grows bananas). Their electricity is very cheap, and renewable, coming from geothermal springs (steam), hydro-power (water) and wind-driven generators (Wikipedia), and so they can have a lot of lights on a lot of the time, along with geothermal heaters. For a more naturalistic plan see: How do you grow trees in a treeless land?