Research paper
Divergent drinking patterns and factors affecting homemade alcohol consumption (the case of Russia)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.04.016Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Unrecorded homemade alcohol consumption has been less examined in the literature. Previous studies of homemade alcohol in Russia have almost entirely focused upon the use of samogon (moonshine) attributed to the northern style of drinking. No systematic analysis is available regarding the production and consumption of homemade wine. This paper explores the drinking patterns demonstrated by consumers of samogon and homemade wine in Russia. The main factors affecting the consumption of these beverages are investigated.

Methods

Data were collected from a 2014 nationwide survey of 14,986 respondents aged 15+ years. Beverage preferences, volume of consumed alcohol, drinking habits, and alcohol availability were the main measures reported. Demographic, socio-economic, spatial, and policy-related factors affecting homemade alcohol consumption are examined using logistic regression.

Results

The percentages of samogon and homemade wine consumers were similar, although a greater volume of samogon in pure alcohol was consumed compared to homemade wine. The groups of samogon and homemade wine consumers showed very little overlap. Unlike homemade wine consumers, samogon drinkers consumed larger amounts of alcohol and were more engaged in frequent and excessive drinking, drinking without meals and drinking in marginal public settings. Gender, education, regional affiliation, and type of residence showed opposite associations with regard to the consumption of samogon and homemade wine. Availability of homemade alcohol in the neighbourhood was the most influential predictor due to respondents’ own production, presence of homemade alcohol in friendship networks and at illegal market. The prices of manufactured alcohol and the consumption of homemade alcohol did not show significant relationships.

Conclusion

Consumers of samogon and homemade wine demonstrate contrasting drinking patterns that are largely driven by different factors. Samogon is consumed in a more hazardous manner, whereas homemade wine is consumed in a more moderate and law-abiding way. Illegal commercial samogon should be a special concern for alcohol policy.

Introduction

Drinking is deeply ingrained in the values and culture of societies, which implies that the scope of analysis should not be confined to the level of alcohol consumption. It is vitally important to find substantial differences in drinking patterns that are intrinsically linked to social variables (Rehm et al., 1996). Due to these linkages, country-specific drinking styles are not homogeneous (Grant, Houghton, & Kast, 1998). Nation-states should not be treated as whole cultures but rather as collections of rich cultural variations (Stimson, Grant, Choquet, & Garrison, 2007).

Previous studies have identified Russia as a country with a prototypical northern style of drinking (Popova et al., 2007, Volkov et al., 2012). This style implies a prevalence of spirits over other beverages, a high level of per capita alcohol consumption and excessive drinking, especially among males (Haworth & Simpson, 2004). However, recent changes must also be considered. The recorded adult per capita consumption of vodka and other spirits has declined since the mid-1990s, according to the official Rosstat statistics (Denisova, 2010, Neufeld and Rehm, 2013). Survey data have also demonstrated that the percentage of drinkers of vodka and other spirits has declined, whereas the consumption of beer and wine has increased (Radaev, 2015, Roshchina, 2012). These observed changes in beverage preferences correspond to global trends in societies with the northern drinking style moving towards the Central European and Mediterranean styles, which are associated with the consumption of beer and wine (Mäkelä et al., 2012, Popova et al., 2007). We argue that a broader assessment is highly relevant for Russia, a large country with climatic variations and divergent cultures. It is particularly important to explore internal differences and to understand the factors that could affect this divergence.

While relevant for manufactured alcohol, by which we mean alcoholic drinks produced by alcohol beverage companies, the previously cited results are not clear for homemade alcohol because its consumption is largely unrecorded and has been far less examined in the existing literature (Lachenmeier et al., 2011, Rehm et al., 2010). Previous studies of the use of homemade alcohol in Russia have almost entirely focused upon samogon (moonshine), whereas no systematic statistical or survey data exist on the use of homemade wine fermented from grapes and various fruit materials. Official Rosstat data were collected about samogon only from 1980 to 1989. Expert estimates of unrecorded alcohol, undertaken by Vladimir Treml over the period from 1960 to 1993 and Alexander Nemtsov from 1981 to 2001, were also mainly confined to samogon (Nemtsov, 2009, Treml, 1997). In addition, survey data were also confined to samogon consumption prior to 2012.

In this paper, we will use new survey data collected from 2012 to 2014 to explore a group of homemade wine consumers and compare it with a group of samogon consumers. We will examine if these two groups overlap and how their drinking patterns differ with regard to the volume of consumed alcohol, the frequency of drinking, excessive drinking, the combination of drinking and meals, and the settings in which drinking occurs (Dawson and Room, 2000, Grant et al., 1998). We will also investigate demographic, socio-economic, spatial and availability factors that might affect beverage preferences. Alcohol availability and prices of manufactured alcohol are particularly important because a new alcohol policy that imposes numerous restrictions on the manufacture and sale of alcohol and accelerating excise taxes on manufactured alcohol in Russia was implemented in 2010–2014 (Radaev, 2015).

Section snippets

Data sources

We used data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring survey (RLMS-HSE), established by “Demoscope” and the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 and conducted with the National Research University Higher School of Economics since 2010. RLMS-HSE is a nationally representative panel survey of households and individuals that uses multistage probability sampling, with primary sampling units selected from geographically determined strata. The data represent

Two drinking patterns

Starting with the basic findings obtained from the 2014 round of the RLMS-HSE survey, 65.8% of the 14,897 respondents consumed alcoholic beverages at least sometimes, and 67.2% of the drinkers (6570 respondents) had consumed alcoholic beverages during the last 30 days. Homemade alcoholic beverages were consumed by 10.5% of the drinkers (692 respondents) during the last 30 days. Homemade alcoholic beverages represented 9.6% of the total volume of consumed alcohol recalculated in grams of pure

Drinking patterns

The northern style of drinking with a prevalence of spirits has been widely described in the literature on Russia, whereas alternative drinking styles concerning the consumption of wine and beer have merited little attention. The consumption of homemade wine has not been reported in either official statistics or in survey data. The extended questionnaire in the 2012–2014 RLMS-HSE surveys allowed the identification of two distinct groups of homemade alcohol consumers with divergent drinking

Limitations

This study was limited by the analysis of homemade alcohol, and it did not explore other types of unrecorded alcohol, such as manufactured illegal alcohol or non-beverage alcohol. The latter is particularly important because it poses a greater risk of fatal poisoning (Solodun et al., 2011). However, consumption of these types of unrecorded alcohol is not effectively captured in self-reported data.

We concede that the volume of alcohol consumption could have been underreported in the surveys (

Conclusion

The northern style of drinking associated with the consumption of spirits is currently being challenged in Russia by alternative drinking patterns, which deserve greater attention. The continuous decline in the consumption of both manufactured and homemade spirits has contributed to further heterogeneity in drinking patterns in Russia.

Regarding homemade alcohol, we identified two distinct groups of samogon and homemade wine drinkers that were similar in size but that demonstrated two

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an unrestricted grant for academic research from The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD). RLMS-HSE surveys were funded by the Program for Basic Research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

We are thankful to Tatiana Karabchuk, Daria Salnikova, and in particular to research team members Zoya Kotelnikova, Irina Kratko, and Yana Roshchina for their valuable comments on the draft of this paper.
Conflict of interest statement

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