Roy Beers: Buckie - the monastic enigma that's sailing through recession

According to popular tabloid The Sunday Mail: "Experts say the surge is no surprise as the credit crunch has prompted people to buy cheaper, stronger drink".

However this is complete nonsense. I won't go into a price breakdown of relative abv's in the fortified wine sector but Buckfast tonic wine - created at that monastic haven of tranquility, Buckfast Abbey in Devon - isn't the "value for money brand" in its particular league, and cheaper options are certainly available.

I think the bulk buy beer offers available at supermarkets, and of course the "Castrol GTX" white "ciders", available for pennies, offer a much more efficacious way of getting grossly inebriated for very little money, if that is your thing.

Cheap and nasty vodka brands also beat it hands down if the simple aim is to get drunk cheaply - and have the advantage of having no discernible taste.

Yet the 15% abv drink, perhaps originally intended as a pick-me-up for elderly ladies, is the unchallenged demon of the Scottish drinks trade - much to the continuing chagrin of the distributor, J Chandler & Co, which continually complains about its brand being singled out for opprobrium whenever chronic alcohol abuse is mentioned.

Unfortunately some consumers seem unaware or uncaring of the original brand proposition, which was: "Three small glasses a day, for good health and lively blood".

In Glasgow this sometimes translates as "a bottle and a sectarian sing-song on the way to the match".

No other drink comes close in terms of controversy, by brand name or type, unless it's the misunderstood category of "alcopops", which - their critics refuse to accept - are never stronger than any mass brand premium lager.

Of course Buckfast is overwhelmingly an off-trade proposition, although I'm told there are some pubs in the post-industrial wastelands of Lanarkshire where you can also find it served over the bar.

But it's such a continuing "success story", in terms of volume sales - up 10% in the last year, with sales said to be up 50 per cent over the last five years - that you wonder just why this egregiously nasty concoction (sickly sweet and laced with caffeine) has such an enthusiastic following.

The Scottish Government made an ill-advised attempt to curtail its popularity a few years ago, or at any rate to persuade off licences to either remove it from their shelves or strictly curtail its sales.

Government minister Cathy Jamieson, of the then Labour administration, was booed by local neds (as we call ASBO youths in Scotland) as she made a disastrous photocall visit to one particular offie.

Former Labour First Minister Jack McConnell (whose Motherwell constituency is a regional hot-spot for the brand) called Buckfast "a badge of pride amongst those who are involved in antisocial behaviour."

But sales reportedly increased after this ill-considered government intervention.

Nothing much has changed. In Renfrewshire this week a neighbourhood watch group was back on the same tack, aiming to persuade licensees to remove the demon brew from their shelves.

Local councillors insist that the broken glass they find after late night youth bingeing sessions is invariably Buckie green - and in there have also been demands for the brand to be made available only in plastic, which Buckfast has fiercely resisted.

Unfortunately for the brand image Buckie is also famously linked to telly's emperor of problem drinkers, Rab C Nesbitt, the string-vested inebriate from Glasgow's Govan, who in one memorable episode actually paid a pilgrimage to Buckfast Abbey (where he was given a fairly uncharitable reception.)

It's also sadly beyond reasonable dispute that Buckie - with no controversial labelling, no deep discounts, no adverts or promotions of any kind - is a sort of "style accessory" of the discerning Scottish lout, perhaps particularly in west central Scotland.

Yet there doesn't seem to be any role for the Portman Group to play in this odd phenomenon. The only charge that can be laid against the brand is that people like it, and that of its core consumers in Scotland, but possibly not elsewhere, a fair number consume it irresponsibly. That's hardly the fault of the manufacturer, however, and a similar charge could be made against non-controversial vodkas and no doubt many other drinks.

But it must be disheartening for a brand owner to see its name feature fairly regularly in court cases, often very serious ones.

At the same time it's hard to think of any other brand which is singled out for special mention in this way: if it isn't Buckie criminals are usually just "drunk", after consuming generic pints of lager or glasses of vodka.

You do, however, find the odd off-licence prepared to raise eyebrows with the way it goes about selling the drink.

One outlet in Glasgow was recently reported to be selling a Buckie gift pack containing a pack of cigarettes and, mysteriously (given the readymade cigarettes) a packet of cigarette papers. This is the sort of thing that doesn't win the off trade any prizes in the current climate of angst about problem drinking - and smoking.

The drink has been marketed as a mainstream wine since the 1920's. The brothers at Buckfast Abbey retain, I believe, a third share in the company.

Stung by repeated claims that its product is fuelling youth binge drinking and causing social harm the owning firm has made contributions to charities, sports initiatives, and so forth, in some of the areas where it is said to be inadvertently causing havoc.

But Buckfast remains doggedly controversial, its once innocent reputation a longstanding victim of some spontaneous urban zeitgeist which has made it a favourite of the sort of people, using the word fairly loosely, we'd rather not encounter on a dark night.

It's probably not the sort of icon those Benedictine monks in Devon had in mind.