Alcohol monopoly to protect the non-commercial sector of eighteenth-century Poland

In Poland, between the end of the sixteenth century and the end of the eighteenth century, there was a dramatic increase in the manufacture and sale of grain-based intoxicants. While income from the manufacture of alcohol accounted for .3% of the overall income of royal properties in 1564 and 6.4% about a century later, in 1764 it accounted for 37.6% of the overall income. By 1789 the proportion of revenues from the sale of alcohol reached 40.1 percent. ¹ In view of the large growth in total income during this period, this increase in the proportion of the income derived from alcohol sales indicated an even larger growth in the actual quantity of alcohol manufactured. While precise figures are unavailable for other types of estates, there is little reason to assume that the pattern varied considerably.