Potent and cheap: Little Fat Lamb in soft-drink-style bottles attracts young drinkers
A POTENT alcoholic cider sold in large soft-drink-style plastic bottles is alarming parents and health advocates who say its packaging and cheap price makes it attractive to under-age drinkers.
IT looks like a soft drink in a big plastic bottle and can be purchased for $8 — but Little Fat Lamb-brewed alcoholic ciders are potent.
The flavoured alcoholic drink has angered parents and health advocates, who say its packaging and cheap price makes it attractive to under-age drinkers.
Little Fat Lamb — sold in 1.25 litre bottles for as little as $8 — has an alcohol content of 8 per cent, well above most beers and ready-to-drink beverages.
It comes in different flavours including Strawberry and Lime, Tropical and Cola.
Parents report it has become a favoured beverage at gatherings of young people where the combination of its sweet, easy-to-drink flavour and high alcohol content can have quick and devastating effects.
Little Fat Lamb has developed a large social media following, including two unofficial Facebook sites filled with photographs and messages that celebrate the effects of excessive alcohol consumption, including images of people passed out and a stomach pump.
The product label lists the manufacturer as Drink Craft Pty Ltd and gives a website that is not in operation.
Glengowrie mother Melissa Taylor saw the effects of Little Fat Lamb first hand at her son’s 16th birthday party.
She said bags had been checked on arrival and alcohol, such as beer and spirits, confiscated if not supplied with a parental permission.
“When kids were walking around with that drink (Little Fat Lamb) we didn’t realise it was alcohol initially,” she said.
“They looked like soft drink bottles. It took a while to twig there were a lot of kids with this sort of drink and that there was something going on.
“Kids were becoming affected very quickly and some were vomiting in the backyard.”
South Australian Network of Drug and Alcohol Services executive director Michael White said his organisation was worried about both the packaging and price of the drink.
“We have reals concerns about the alcohol industry starting to market and target products at younger people,” he said.
“They are essentially selling it in soft drink bottles. There should be a clear differentiation between alcoholic and non-alcoholic products.
He said the drink was made to be “sweeter and more palatable than beer and wine” and could ask a lower price as it benefited from the tax discount applied to wine and other fruit-based drinks.
“If you make a product that looks like a soft drink, smells like a soft drink, tastes like a soft drink and you market it that way, but it uses a wine (or fruit) base, then you get this low tax regime compared to if you had used a beer or spirit base,” he said.
He said the service wanted to see a standardised tax system across all products based on how much alcohol it contained.
Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education chief executive Michael Thorn agreed, saying it was not clear what sort of fruit was used in the manufacture.