OREANDA-NEWS. On 01 June 2009 was announced, that Belarus’ vodka and hard liquor output increased 6.2% on the year in January-April to 4.9 million decaliters, an official with Belarus’ National Statistics Committee told.

In the period, cognac output amounted to 94,000 decaliters, up 70.9% 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 9% on the year to 646,000 decaliters, and the output of fruit wines decreased 15.4% to 5.5 million decaliters. The output of sparkling wines went up 3.3% on the year in the period to 375,000 decaliters.

Vodka sales increased 4.2% on the year in January-April to 3.55 million decaliters. Sales of other hard drinks rose 14.3% to 378,000 decaliters, sales of grape wines went down 5.2% on the year to 751,000 decaliters.

Sales of cognac went down 13.4% to 71,000 decaliters, sales of sparkling wines increased 1.7% on the year to 324,000 decaliters. Sales of fruit wines fell 9.6% to 4.797 million decaliters.

The share of vodka in the sales of alcoholic beverages [in absolute alcohol terms on May 1] in Belarus rose to 49.4% in January-April from 47.1% in January-April 2008. The share of other hard drinks rose 0.4 percentage points to 3.9%. The share of grape wines in alcohol sales edged down 0.1 percentage points to 3.7%.

Fruit wine sales share decreased 3 percentage points, still remaining high at 30%.

The share of cognac edged down 0.2 percentage point to 0.9% and of sparkling wines remained unchanged at 1.2%.