The sibling point that talks about the goal of the tax hits the idea you are talking about, I think. And this is what I meant saying you can show they can impact the soda companies. But regardless of any downstream effects of the tax existing, the tax is paid by the consumer.

> It has ceased making its iconic beverage and now only sells a variant that tastes crap.

It looks like they reintroduced the original recipe in 2021 (and previously as a limited release in 2019), under the name Irn Bru 1901. Or does that version still differ from the version of Irn Bru the low-sugar Irn Bru replaced?

Yes. I want the 2017 recipe, not the 1901 recipe.

The 1901 recipe has 11g sugar per 100ml. Also it lacks caffeine.

The 2017 recipe had 35g sugar per 100ml.

The 2018 recipe has 4.5g sugar per 100ml.

The sugar tax is £0.18 per litre for 5-8g sugar per litre, and £0.24 per litre for >8g sugar per litre.

Irn-Bru has many price points depending on form factor and location, but a 2 litre bottle today typically costs £2.10. The sugar-free variant costs the same. If the full sugar tax applied, it'd cost £2.68 (22.8% higher price).

Coca-Cola is so expensive with the tax, they don't even sell it in 2 litre bottles anymore, just 1.75 litre bottles. Coca-Cola "Original Taste" is £2.55 for 1.75l (£1.46/l) while Coca-Cola Zero is £2.15 for 2l (£1.08/l), a difference of £0.38 per litre, of which £0.24 is sugar tax.

Destroying demand for sugary drinks was exactly the intent, though.

Yes, but if there's an axe murderer in my house, I don't care how much he intends to murder me. I don't want him to murder me.

The government has a variety of aims and objectives. Certainly, shooting for a more healthy population is good. Convincing those that drink a lot to drink less would be one way. Permanently making the drinks awful for the entire population, no matter how many or few they drink, and ensuring what was once good never ever comes back... is another way.

But the government didn't make the drink awful. They only set the tax. Your position is that you'd have paid more anyway but now tis not an option. That seems like a business decision. Maybe the old version has so much sugar it was untenable with the tax... how sugary was it?

That's a motte-and-bailey argument.

The government set out to reduce consumption of high-sugar drinks. They had choices on how to do that e.g. they could've targetted demand. They chose to target supply with a "sin tax".

Private companies then, for no reason whatsoever, of their own free will, decided to eliminate high-sugar drink options. They would not have done so had the government not imposed the tax. If you then blame the government for their action, they'll want to say "oh I only set the tax", despite knowing they set the tax intentionally to engineer this outcome.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/05/irn-bru-dri...

> The reduction in Irn-Bru’s sugar content from 8.5 teaspoons to four, taking a can from just under 140 calories to about 65 calories

The old (2018) Irn-Bru had about 35g of table sugar per 330ml, it now has 14.85g. Coca-Cola has 35g, Pepsi has 15g. Both those multinational companies still sell their full-sugar drinks, at a much higher price with the sugar tax applied, though they also sell sugar-free alternatives (Max, Zero), as does Irn-Bru (Xtra). Coke and Pepsi have a much larger sales volume and can afford to make less sales on their full-sugar product, and keep them in their product line-up. I don't think Irn-Bru can.

The UK government ruined Irn-Bru. I still drink as much as I normally do, which is about 12 litres a year; I am well under the intended beneficiary of this war on sugar, the sort of people who drink >100 litres a year, but when I do have it, it now tastes of sadness and lamentations for better times in the past, and I just feel anger for those who wrecked it for everybody.

> I still drink as much as I normally do, which is about 12 litres a year; I am well under the intended beneficiary of this war on sugar, the sort of people who drink >100 litres a year…

It sounds like Irn-Bru was only viable _because_ of the sort of people who drink >100 litres a year. You were benefitting from that viability thanks to the very people you admit were being targeted by the tax. If they had stopped their high consumption for some other reason, availability of the original Irn-Bru would have suffered the same result due to the same drop in demand. The tax isn’t directly to blame here. The direct cause is the original motivation itself, regardless of how it was implemented. Considering only this specific example you cannot reject the tax without also rejecting the motivation.

That's a very good argument!

> they could've targetted demand. They chose to target supply with a "sin tax".

I think you've got that back to front. A higher price reduces demand. There is still the capability to supply, but the demand is no longer there.