AUSTRALIA. A new drink that could undermine years of carefully cultivated Aussie machoism is about to hit the South Australian market. Yes, it’s alcoholic milk, also known as Moo Joose.
South Australia is the only state where Victorian company Wicked Holdings has been granted a licence to sell Alcoholic Moo Joose, with Victoria banning the product and New South Wales set to follow.
The drink, to be sold in bottle shops, restaurants, pubs and nightclubs, but not by the milkman, has an alcohol content of 5.3%.
Predictably, the move has angered drug and alcohol groups who are concerned the product – in Strawberry Rush, Banana Smash, Choc Fusion and Wicked Irish flavours – is marketed at pint-sized young people.
“Alcoholic milk would exacerbate the serious problem of underage and binge drinking by young people,” Centre for Youth Drug Studies director Geoff Munro said. “The industry has been able to market a plethora of new products but we say enough is enough – we do not need alcoholic milk.”
But company director Travis Morgan, equally predictably, defended the drink. “I’m just a dairy farmer trying to be more self sufficient rather than taking grants off the Government in hard times of the drought,” he said, clearly trying to milk some sympathy.
“Kids drink a lot of Coke, lemonade and raspberry – now all alcohol companies have done is put alcohol into that product.”
Liquor Licensing Victoria refused a licence for the product in September. New South Wales Gaming and Racing Minister Grant McBride said there was “clearly an imperative” to ban the “dangerously misleading” product.
“My concern is that the container looks just like the sort of milk drink that a young child would have,” McBride said.
No plans to milk the duty free market have yet been revealed.
