In my case, I was with my best friend in a small, shabby churchyard in Edinburgh’s city centre during the annual Fringe Festival. Fidra and I knocked back a 35cl flask before heading along, slightly worse for wear, to a free comedy show (it wasn’t good).
I had other memorable (or rather, forgetful) nights on Buckfast. One such night was conducted in a steamy little cabaret bar where my friend Adam, who moonlit as a drag queen, pranced back and forth on the stage. Being a little too intoxicated on Buckfast, and a little too comfortable with the fact I knew the headliner, I was over enthusiastic and loud.
Buckfast Tonic Wine, also known as "Bucky", "Commotion Lotion", "Cumbernauld Rocket Fuel", "Wreck the Hoose Juice" and "Jakey Juice", is a caffeinated alcoholic drink that sells for a little over £5 (about $NZ10) for a 750ml bottle. It’s cheap, sweet, widely accessible and wildly popular in Scotland.
Buckfast is crafted based on a traditional recipe attributed to French monks who settled at the Abbey in Devon in the late 1800s. Originally, it was marketed as a medicinal product, promoted by the slogan "three small glasses a day for robust health and vitality". In 1927, the Abbey lost its licence to sell wine, prompting the Abbott to allow wine merchants J. Chandler & Company Ltd to distribute Buckfast on behalf of the Abbey.
The company decided to take the tonic wine in a new direction. From its origins as a patent medicine of sorts, it became a smoother, more palatable medicated wine, marketed as something to "help you cope with life’s little ups and downs".
Now produced under a licence granted by Buckfast monastery, the drink is distributed by J. Chandler & Company in Great Britain, James E. McCabe Ltd in Northern Ireland, and Richmond Marketing Ltd in Ireland.
Mixing alcohol with caffeine is nothing new. But Buckfast has a uniquely disastrous and chaotic legacy, especially in Scotland.
It is associated with hooligan non-educated delinquent culture, features in cult classic Trainspotting, and is sold in immense quantities throughout the Central Lowlands including Glasgow and the surrounding areas of East Kilbride, Hamilton, Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Cambuslang, Airdrie and Coatbridge. There’s even an app which helps users locate their nearest Buckfast supplier.
Why is Buckfast so popular in Scotland?
Firstly, it comprises an unhealthy combination of alcohol, sugar and caffeine, while also being cheap, premixed, portable and readily available. Its potency lies in its caffeine content: a single 750ml bottle contains 281mg, equivalent to about 8 cans of Coke.
This high caffeine concentration would potentially render it illegal in the United States — the Food and Drug Administration prohibits beverages that combine alcohol and caffeine.
But why Scotland, of all places? After all, Buckfast comes from a little monastery in England.
According to some legends, Buckfast’s popularity in Scotland may be linked to the traditionally Catholic supporters of the Scottish football club Celtic FC, who reportedly developed a fondness for the beverage as their ritual pre-match drink during the 1970s.
However, newspaper advertisements from the 1930s indicate the Scots had a penchant for the stuff well before then.
In 1921, alterations in licensing regulations restricted alcohol sales to specific hours on weekdays, with total prohibition on Sundays. Buckfast, available in pharmacies as medicine as well as wine shops, circumvented these restrictions, allowing purchases at any time.
Others have suggested that Buckfast’s popularity in Lanarkshire arises from the strenuous physical labour historically prevalent in the area, particularly in industries such as mining. Buckfast’s extremely high caffeine content, coupled with the fact it was sold in pharmacies as "mood boosters", might explain its popularity with the local labour force.
Then there’s the fact that it’s become something of a cultural touchstone in Scotland; a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
Like Scarfies lighting couches on fire, the sheer number of pearl-clutching news stories about naughty young Scots drinking Buckfast has probably contributed to the mythos surrounding the drink. I know that I chose to drink Buckfast as a teenager in Scotland because I found it funny — because I knew it was expected of me, and because I wanted to see what the hype was all about.
All this would make for a rather funny story, if not for the fact that Buckfast is unfortunately associated with antisocial behaviour and alcohol-related violence. For example, it was referenced in 5638 crime reports in Strathclyde from 2006 to 2009, averaging three mentions per day.
In 2017, Scottish Police reported 6500 crimes associated with the drink in the preceding two years. Of these offences, one in 10 were violent — glass Buckfast bottles were used as weapons 114 times during that period.
I don’t have a solution for this problem. It’s clear, however, that addressing the issues surrounding Buckfast’s widespread use in Scotland requires a multifaceted approach that combines not only education and awareness campaigns, but better regulations around the sale and distribution of the drink, especially among young people. At the very least, more needs to be done to improve access to support services such as counselling, addiction treatment, and mental health support for individuals struggling with alcohol abuse or antisocial behaviour.
World Buckfast Day takes place on the second Saturday of May each year. Needless to say, I won’t be taking part this year. But the cultural phenomenon of Buckfast continues to fascinate, even though the appeal has faded for me personally.
- Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has just started a new life in Edinburgh.
