The Buck-fast stops with the monks

Poor, misunderstood Buckfast.

Buckfast is a “smooth, mature, medicated wine” according to the Benedictine monks who make it. But it’s the tipple of choice to get you drunk fast, according to police.

YouTube has film of teenagers fizzing up “Buckie” in SodaStream machines for more of a punch and Buckfast bottles being thrown at firefighters. In deprived South Lanarkshire there’s a Buckfast-based “Velvet Elvis” cocktail (where it’s mixed with energy drinks) and an off-licence was raided by kids who stood on crates of expensive malt whisky to reach Buckie from the higher shelves. Indeed a survey of lads in Polmont jail who were drunk on arrest, found 40% had been drinking Buckfast.

But who is responsible the pious makers, under-age drinkers or wider society? And would bad behaviour stop if Buckie was cleared from the shelves?

The reticent monks don’t generally comment, but last week, Abbot David Charlesworth of Buckfast Abbey took that rare step after Strathclyde Police linked the fortified brew to nearly 6,500 crime reports in Strathclyde alone over the last three years.

The Abbot said: “If I say I don’t feel any responsibility that makes me sound like a heartless so and so.” (Correct, by the way)

“That’s not the case. I don’t want Buckfast Abbey to be associated with broken bottles and drunks. But is the product bad? No.”

It’s the classic “guns don’t kill, people do” argument. And that might be fine if Buckfast’s distributors weren’t taking a stronger line slag off the drink and we’ll sue. They’re not happy about police plans to mark Buckie bottles in an underage drinking crackdown and this year Kenny MacAskill became the second Justice Minister to face the wrath of distributors, J. Chandler & Co after calling Buckie a “problem drink.”

Back in 2005, Auchinleck Co-op restricted sales to over-21s at the request of then Scottish Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson and Chandler’s complained she had defamed a quality brand “round and mature to the most discerning of tastes”.

Really? Half of Buckfast UK sales occur north of the border. In Lanarkshire, doctors used to prescribe it for exhausted miners and steelworkers because one bottle contains as much caffeine as eight cans of Coke plus 15% alcohol.

Times change, industries disappear but drinking habits persist. Now locals call Buckfast “wreck the hoose juice”, most truly discerning drinkers probably wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole and the Americans have banned all high caffeine/alcohol drinks.

Of course Buckie’s not alone. In some areas Lanny (Lanliq) was the fortified wine of choice, in others, El D. (Eldorado).

So is Buckie the most successful or the worst offender?

Ironically the negative publicity gives it kid appeal and that’s helped the monks chalk up record sales of £39 million last year after building a new winery to meet demand!

So should Buckfast be banned? Legal action has delayed Scottish Government plans for minimum alcohol pricing, but as Buckie is relatively expensive it wouldn’t be affected. So politicians take an occasional pop at the brew, create headlines and back down.

It’s easy to accuse them of double standards and indecision. Less easy to reverse a tide of booze that’s been used to blot out hard times in Scotland for decades. But we have to start.

Since 1971, average alcohol consumption has doubled, and the relative price has halved. Liver disease is predicted to pass heart disease as the main killer within a decade.

The monks have already rejected pleas to lower Buckie’s caffeine content now they should be made to.

Or we’ll have to conclude that making a fast buck is all the Benedictine Boys really care about.