OREANDA-NEWS. On 30 June 2009 was announced, that Belarus’ vodka and hard liquor output increased 7.7% on the year in January-May to 6 million decaliters, an official with Belarus’ National Statistics Committee.

In the period, cognac output amounted to 112,000 decaliters, up 55.6% 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 2.1% on the year to 753,000 decaliters, and the output of fruit wines decreased 12.9% to 7.2 million decaliters. The output of sparkling wines went up 7.4% on the year in the period to 467,000 decaliters.

Vodka sales increased 2.9% on the year in January-May to 4.464 million decaliters. Sales of other hard drinks rose 13.9% to 476,000 decaliters, sales of grape wines went down 6.5% on the year to 938,000 decaliters.

Sales of cognac went down 15.9% to 86,000 decaliters, sales of sparkling wines increased 1.1% on the year to 400,000 decaliters. Sales of fruit wines fell 9.3% to 6.191 million decaliters.

The share of vodka in the sales of alcoholic beverages [in absolute alcohol terms on June 1] in Belarus rose to 48.7% in January-May from 47.1% in January-May 2008. The share of other hard drinks rose 0.5 percentage points to 3.9%. The share of grape wines in alcohol sales edged down 0.2 percentage points to 3.6%.

Fruit wine sales share decreased 2.7 percentage points, still remaining high at 30.4%.

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