“It reminds me of Passion Pop [sparkling wine] a generation ago, it was just a cheap drink to get real loaded on,” says Dr Nicholas Carah, a researcher at University of Queensland who studies social media and alcohol promotion. While younger drinkers have always sought sweet, low-cost booze, the emergence of Little Fat Lamb has prompted concern among health experts that it is promoting binge drinking by dodging a tax loophole. With an alcohol volume of 8 per cent, Little Fat Lamb is strong. A 1.25-litre soft drink-style plastic bottle, the most popular size, packs more standard drinks than a bottle of wine. As one fan, Amy, told Fairfax Media when asked why she drinks it: "Because it's cheap and it gets me smashed." While it's supposedly made from cider, nowhere on the drink’s label does it actually say this. Rather it is labelled as a “brewed” alcoholic drink and comes in a variety of flavours like tropical, cola and berry.

“It's sold in a bottle that looks like soft drink and it tastes like soft drink,” says VicHealth's principal program officer for alcohol Maya Rivis. “Young kids who are inexperienced around alcohol drink it very quickly and before they know it they're in a lot of trouble.” While cider’s share of the alcohol market is still relatively small compared with beer and wine, figures from IBIS World show it is the industry's fastest growing drink and worth $361 million in annual revenue. One 1.25 litre bottle of Little Fat Lamb contains eight standard drinks and can be bought for as little as $4. Credit:Paul Jeffers Younger people appear to be part of this trend. Data shows that cider consumption among school students - particularly girls - has skyrocketed in recent years.

According to the Australian Secondary School Alcohol and Drug Survey taken in 2014, 9 per cent of girls aged between 12 and 17 said cider was their most common drink - up from less than 1 per cent in 2008. And while Somersby, Rekorderlig and Strongbow are among the most purchased ciders, sales data seen by Fairfax Media shows that Little Fat Lamb was in the top 10 brands at the start of 2017. Going by the brand's popularity on social media, where fans share memes and photos about getting drunk on Little Fat Lamb, its sales can only have increased since then. One post on Facebook with hundreds of likes uses the "name a more iconic duo" meme template, along with a bottle of Little Fat Lamb and a person slumped face down on a bench. Another says "raise your hands if you've personally been victimised by Little Fat Lamb". Dr Nicholas Carah says the Facebook pages, if they are run by the distributor, are "so far outside" the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code Scheme, a self-regulated body which fields complaints about booze marketing.

A meme on the Little Fat Lamb Facebook page. "It's this continuous celebration of excessive consumption," he says. "Sometimes you'll see brands on social media winking at that but not in this totally explicit way." The distributor of Little Fat Lamb, Drink Craft Pty Ltd, has fallen foul of the code in the past. In 2015, a complaint was upheld about its packaging having a strong appeal to minors. The company did not respond to a list of questions put to it last week by Fairfax Media, including whether it runs the Facebook pages or what Little Fat Lamb is made from.

The reason Little Fat Lamb is able to be sold so cheaply is tax. When then-treasurer Wayne Swan introduced the so-called alcopop tax in 2008, it was a social measure aimed at reducing binge drinking. Under that scheme, premixed spirt drinks are taxed by alcohol volume. Ciders, however, fall under the Wine Equalisation Tax, which is calculated at 29 per cent of the wholesale price. The cider industry is concerned that the Wine Equalisation Tax is being used to sell what is basically a mixed alcoholic drink more cheaply. "It's an RTD [ready to drink] type product but it's taxed like a cider," says Cider Australia CEO Jane Anderson, who believes the drink is most likely made by fermenting cheap fruit juice imported from China.

The cider industry believes Little Fat Lamb is made form cheap apple juice imported from China. Credit:David Hil As well as taxing by volume, there are calls for a minium price to be introduced on alcohol to help curb binge drinking. In the UK, where cider has been described as "more deadly than heroin", a levy was introduced last year to stop it being sold so cheaply. Similar policies are on the way in Australia. In the Northern Territory, a recent review of alcohol abuse recommended a $1.30 floor price per standard drink. "The evidence around price is really clear, it's a real deterrent for people," says Maya Rivis from VicHealth.