OREANDA-NEWS. On 26 August 2009 was announced, that Belarus’ vodka and hard liquor output increased 6.3% on the year in January-July to 8.1 million decaliters, an official with Belarus’ National Statistics Committee told.

In the period, cognac output amounted to 146,000 decaliters, up 36.4% 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 9.1% on the year to 1.085 million decaliters, and the output of fruit wines decreased 9.6% to 10.6 million decaliters. The production of sparkling wines went up 8% on the year in the period to 649,000 decaliters.

Vodka sales increased 1.9% on the year in January-July to 6.262 million decaliters. Sales of other hard drinks rose 14.9% to 684,000 decaliters, sales of grape wines went down 5.9% on the year to 1.346 million decaliters.

Sales of cognac went down 17.7% to 118,000 decaliters, sales of sparkling wines edged down 0.5% on the year to 575,000 decaliters. Sales of fruit wines fell 7.6% to 9.085 million decaliters.

The share of vodka in the sales of alcoholic beverages [in absolute alcohol terms on August 1] in Belarus rose to 47.3% in January-July from 46% in January-July 2008. The share of other hard drinks rose 0.6 of a percentage point to 3.9%. The share of grape wines in alcohol sales edged down 0.1 of a percentage point to 3.6%.

Fruit wine sales share decreased 2.2 percentage points, still remaining high at 30.9%.

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