OTTAWA - Statistics Canada says Canadians spent $21.4 billion on alcoholic beverages in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, up 2.2 per cent from the previous year.
The agency says beer remained the favourite tipple, with $9.1 billion in sales, but that was down 0.1 per cent compared with a year earlier.
Wine sales grew by 4.9 per cent in 2013 to $6.8 billion, while sales of spirits were up 2.9 per cent to $5.4 billion.
By volume, beer sales totalled 2.3 billion litres for the year. The volume of domestic beer sold fell 1.7 per cent to 2.0 billion litres, while the volume of imported beer dropped 3.8 per cent to 300 million litres.
The volume of wine sold increased 3.9 per cent to 506.6 million litres, while the volume of spirits sold rose 2.7 per cent to 222.4 million litres.
Beer sales for the year amounted to 78 litres per person, down from 83.6 litres in 2003, while wine sales on a per-capita basis amounted to 17.4 litres, up 4.3 litres per person in 2003.
