It wasn't opening the Advent calendar, stirring the Christmas pudding or hanging the mistletoe that marked the start of the holidays in my home. No. Christmas always started with the family drinking trip to France.
The British tradition of taking a day trip to France for the sole purpose of buying large quantities of cheap alcohol - the "boozy cruise" - was prevalent throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Every weekend, endless lines of cars and white vans snaked onto the back of the Dover ferry for a day trip to Calais to fill up with dirt-cheap crates of Stella Artois, liters of Le Piat d'Or and boxes of Benson & Hedges from EastEnders Cash & Carry, a huge toddy warehouse run by Dave West, a notorious East End businessman dubbed 'King of the Booze Cruise'.
I grew up in Newhaven, an industrial port town on the Sussex coast, and my parents regularly took advantage of our proximity to France with trips to Dieppe on the Sealink ferry. I still have flashbacks of those rough December transitions, when the ever-present threat of vomit would cut my festive mood to the hilt.
When the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994, it became even easier to stock up du pain, du vin, du Boursin just as you could be in Calais in 35 minutes and shopping in French hypermarkets and wine warehouses before you could say a cheerful "bonjour". As the euro gained strength in the 2000s and the price of wine fell in Britain, the booze cruise fell out of fashion.
However, this year, following a sharp rise in supermarket prices in Britain, I decided to revisit the Calais drinks run. Less than three hours door to door from my home in Brighton, a day out seemed like a nice way to do some Christmas shopping and catch up with my old friends, Nicola and Ben. (The booze cruise is also the ideal way to tick off the "Let's have festive drinks" paperwork en masse.)
Wearing Christmas jumpers, a Mariah medley on Spotify and an empty boot, we pile into my Honda Jazz on a rain-soaked Monday morning and drive to Folkestone and head to France via the Eurotunnel.
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These days, LeShuttle - which currently offers day trips from £27 each way for a car and four passengers - is my favorite way to get to the mainland. Drive on, drive off, the journey is simple and quick, and even cheaper than the ferry (P&O trips start at £29.50 per car each way for a journey that takes an hour longer). Since the Cité Europe shopping center is just a five-minute drive from the terminal, we happily stroll the aisles of the Carrefour hypermarket less than 45 minutes after leaving Blighty.
(Before we go any further, though, I should mention that it's essential to check opening times before you travel, as French supermarkets are not as generous with their shopping hours as Britain. Particularly on Sundays, Carrefour Cité Europe closes at 12:30 p.m. .)
At first it's all too much and I feel overwhelmed by the Gallic offering. Tinsel-lined aisles full of Lindt chocolate, refrigerators stocked with foie gras and truffle treats, displays of colorful pastry chefs and fragrant from. But soon we're throwing bags of madeleines, wheels of brie, whole saucissons and pots of duck rillettes into our carts with cheerful abandon.
The clink of a loaded cart reminds me why we are really here. Fortunately, Carrefour's wine department is reassuringly extensive. Divided into regions such as Alsace, Burgundy and Provence, we spend a fun hour browsing the shelves looking for the most beautiful labels at the cheapest price. Ben is an oenophile, knows something about wine and finds an excellent quality Picpoul de Pinet for €4, while I find a nice Provencal rosé for a delicious €4-5. My trick was to search the better-known wine regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire Valley and pick out the cheaper bottles with a nice label. Nicola was wiser in her choices and looked at what the locals were buying and stocked up on it. For true connoisseurs, the fine wine department offers some real delicacies, such as a 2021 Château Du Grand Soussans Margaux for a bargain €16.
It's worth downloading the Vivino app, where you can instantly find reviews, ratings and prices of over a million wines just by scanning the label.
Although leaving the EU meant the end of unlimited alcohol for personal use, the post-Brexit allowances are still quite generous: 24 bottles of still wine, 12 bottles of sparkling and 42 liters of beer per person. However, the quality and value in France are unbeatable. A box of three bottles of Champagne Jeanmaire is a bargain at €49, while I buy a few bottles of Crémant de Loire - the favorite sparkling in many a Parisian bar - for just over €5. The same bottle can easily cost £9 at Aldi and almost £11 at Waitrose.
As I wheel my towering trolley to the cash register, I politely shout "bonjour" and "je suis thirsty" to the cashier, who has undoubtedly seen and heard it all before. My take from twenty bottles of wine, a case of beer and assorted cheeses and chocolates comes to just over £100, which in the past I have easily spent in my local Tesco Express on Christmas Eve.
Satisfied by our appetite, Nicola, Ben and I look for lunch in Calais. By 2 p.m., many restaurants close for the afternoon, just like the French way. However, a quick Google found us Au Café de Paris on Rue Royale, an old-fashioned French brasserie-cum-café packed with dusty, dated Gallic charm. Warmly welcomed by the maitre'd, we feast on seafood platters, moules marinière and an excellent bottle of Aligoté white burgundy, before clinking back across the Channel to England.
As we drive into Brighton, our hearts and trunks are both filled with festive cheer. And although today's journey cost around £150 for LeShuttle and petrol, if you divide it by three you can still save by shopping in Calais - and much more fun than encountering the hordes in Aldi. We all agreed: a new Christmas tradition had been reborn.
The Booze Lowdown: Aldi vs. Carrefour
Wine
Carrefour's extensive wine range ranges from €1 per bottle to thousands of euros. The cheapest wines I bought were a very tasty Bordeaux for €1.99 a bottle and a lovely dry Muscadet for €2.79 (£2.39). Aldi's cheapest wine is Baron St Jean, a Spanish table red at £3.45 a bottle.
At the top end is Aldi's Specially Selected Châteauneuf-du-pape, which at £17.49 is actually cheaper than Carrefour, which was €25.09 per bottle. Aldi is also currently offering Château Guillemin La Gaffeliere Saint Emilion Grand Cru for a very reasonable £9.99, while a similar Grand Cru from St Emilion cost €11.55 in Carrefour.
However, the range and quality of wines in Carrefour are much greater than those of Aldi, Lidl, Asda et al., making it the first choice for me.
Ghosts
Aldi's own brand spirits such as gin, vodka and blended whiskey all cost £15.99 per litre, while liqueurs such as Bellucci Superiore Amaretto are a bargain at £5.49 for a 50cl bottle.
Carrefour is slightly cheaper at €13.51 for a liter of Sobieski vodka, while Old Thames London gin costs €11.09 for a 70cl bottle. But it's the World Duty Free store at the LeShuttle terminal that takes the cake with Gordon's Gin and Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum at £11.69 per litre.
Beer
The cheapest beer I found in Carrefour was a crate of Sint-Omer for €10.15 for 24 bottles of 25cl. However, you can pick up 3 boxes of Sint Omaars for €24 in World Duty Free at Le Shuttle.
Aldi's cheapest beer is the French-sounding Sainte Etienne (made in England), a premium lager that costs £3.49 for four 440ml cans, and The 1079 Project, a lager priced at £3.49 for six 330 cans ml.
Pronunciation
Carrefour just takes Aldi for good, cheap festive drinks.
The final saving
Our LeShuttle tickets were £108 return for the car and us three passengers. I spent $45 on gas. Lunch was €30 each. Taking all this into account, and considering how much I normally spend on booze at Christmas, I still saved around £40-£50.