A British government study has cleared FABs (flavoured alcoholic beverages, also known as alcopops) of causing a rise in under-age drinking. Although it claims they are being drunk alongside beer, cider and lager, the study says that FABs are not responsible for luring young people to alcohol. The amount of alcohol drunk by British children between 11 and 15 has more than doubled in the last ten years, but only one percent of children said they drank only FABs. Matthew Turner, brand manager of Hooper’s Hooch, a brightly packaged range of fruit-flavoured alcoholic beverages whose labels would not look out of place in an average milk-bar, says that he has never accepted that flavoured alcoholic beverages encourage under-age drinking. He wouldn’t.
