The tax rate per unit of alcohol is the highest for potable spirits and mixed drinks, slightly lower for brandy, lower again for beer. Further, in the case of beer, the rate is lower for low strength beer and much lower for draft beer relative to beer sold in bottles and cans. The effective tax rate per litre of alcohol by volume in wine is relatively low for low-value wine, but relatively high for high-value wine when compared with the other beverages. The reasons for this diverse pattern of different tax bases and tax rates, and then the different effective tax burdens, on different alcoholic beverages and different places of sale owes more to ad hoc responses to producer lobby groups by the political process over time than to logical arguments about market failures canvassed in the rest of this study.