The Virgin Cola Company has taken control of the premixed spirit Virgin Vodka Flyer in house and has relaunched in time for the party season. The promotional emphasis will be in the on-trade but it is being stocked by Thresher and Victoria Wine as well as wholesalers and cash and carries. Scottish Courage is set to give Age Concern Scotland a £10,000 donation through a promotion on Kestrel lager. This is running on 20,000 cases of the brand, with 50p from the sale of each 24 pack going to the charity. Reporting on the 1998 vintage in Italy, Casa Girelli said that although the weather was not perfect the wines were of high quality and volumes were slightly up on the previous three years. Production increased by 5% on 1997 to 53 million hectolitres. First Drinks Brands has turned a 19% decline in the sales of Warninks Advocaat in 1995 to 7% growth. Its peak selling season is Christmas and the company is supporting it by banding the 70cl bottle with a bottle of R Whites Lemonade. This will be available in multiples, specialists and wholesalers. Grolsch has teamed up with KLM to offer consumers cheap travel to Amsterdam. To take up an option to buy a £99 return ticket to Holland including one night's accommodation, drinkers need to send in 12 ringpulls from special cans. Foster's lager won a gold medal at the 1998 Brewing Industry International Awards. To mark this Scottish Courage is putting the awards disc on cans of the brand in time for Christmas. Carlsberg's advertising slogan Probably the best lager in the world' is 25 years old this month and it is featured in the new UK TV campaign for the brand which begins on Monday. With a budget of £3m it will run nationally over Christmas and New Year. Its theme centres on the discovery of the yeast Saccharomces Carlsbergensis from which modern lagers are derived. Whitbread is taking Heineken's style of humour into the streets with a £3.5m poster campaign running until Christmas. This includes 48 sheet posters and taxi sides. The treatments are all designed to be humorous and stand out from all the other Christmas activity. {{DRINKS }}

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