Gazette columnist Alan Hayman laments the passing of the classic booze cruise now Brexit has changed the rules

ANYONE remember the classic booze cruise?

You could slip across to France in your car or van and fill your boots (and their boots) with wine, beer and champagne at rock-bottom prices.

OK, the wine supermarkets of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer had all the discreet charm of a rundown aircraft hangar, but that wasn’t the point.

You could stock up quickly with bottles of the good stuff for a wedding or a wake – or just to keep your cellar at home filled up at decent levels for very decent prices.

And while you were abroad, a meal of excellent seafood in a French harbourside restaurant was also worth having.

While we were in the EU, you could bring as much drink as you wanted from France or Belgium to the UK, provided it was for your own use, or to be given away.

If you ever tried to sell it on, only then did a crime take place.

But that important distinction wasn’t always understood – not least by some within the revenue and customs themselves.

In my former life as a magistrate, I was now and again asked for search warrants by the police or customs.

Gazette:

Columnist Alan Hayman

The lads and lasses in blue usually had their paperwork in order, but with the customs, it was a very different story.

One of their young ladies once asked for a warrant to search the home of a van driver from Braintree who’d been making regular trips to Calais.

So I innocently asked the customs lady what evidence she had brought to show that white van man was selling on any drink he brought back.

A long and totally abashed silence followed.

The customs were clearly mounting a fishing expedition designed to intimidate a potential suspect by checking on their premises.

But not with a warrant from me, they weren’t.

Anyway, the days of bringing in unlimited cheap booze from EU countries sadly ended with the coming of Brexit.

Since last January, the customs have gone back to a strict limit of 24 bottles of standard size still wine allowed into this country duty-free.

And here’s the hard part - if you go one millilitre over the limit, you have to pay duty on the whole consignment.

What with all the current faff over Covid self-isolation when you come back from France, it hardly seems worth the effort.

So buying locally is now looking the better and safer option.

And can I pass on a tip about how to get peak value?

READ MORE:

My good friend Colin – a wine buff from Great Bentley who sadly passed away last month – liked to shop around for bargains at wine merchants all across East Anglia.

But he never paid less than around £8 a bottle, and here’s why.

That £5 bottle might look like top value.

But it actually contains just 50 pence-worth of wine, the rest going on duty, VAT, transport and packaging.

If you spend £8, the fixed costs stay the same at around £4.50, but the wine value you are getting goes up five times to around £3.50.

To Colin, it was a no-brainer.

You get what you pay for and that is especially the case in the world of wine.

In any event, whatever you’re drinking, cheers!