Why is there an "inevitable crushing global mid-century liquor shortage"?

[GreatWyrmGold]

I was reading a certain history professor/blogger's discussion of Victoria III, when he casually mentioned "the inevitable crushing global mid-century liquor shortage and no, I am not kidding, ask any VickyII player and they will tell you about this" as an example of the economic jank Victoria III has smoothed away. And that intrigued me. So I hit Google and found several reports of crippling liquor shortages, with no explanations...which made me more curious about what those explanations might be.

So I did more googling, and found one reference to liquor having "infinite demand," TV Tropes talking about liquor factories in small nations going bankrupt due to glass prices, and a wide variety of jokes, ranging from several variations on "Swedes like alcohol" to an unexpected Dwarf Fortress reference. Also a ton of people wondering why liquor is so profitable. I have a vague idea of factors that might be responsible for the inevitable liquor shortage, but I've only played about four hours of Vicky 2 and don't have any confidence in my ability to interpret its mechanics.

So I ask what are hopefully some of the most dedicated, knowledgeable Victoria II players on the web: Why the heck is there always a liquor shortage?

 

[Kovax]

As pops become wealthier and increase their Consciousness, they demand more and more goods. Liquor is featured as a luxury good "need" for many pops, so the increasing wealth of pops world-wide will boost demand for those products. Consciousness increases demand for all "needs". The amount of liquor "needed" is fairly high, for whatever reason, compared to some other goods, so it increases proportionally from an already high base demand.

In my last campaign, I noticed that my nation was the leading producer of Liquor, yet it was my second largest import. The pops simply couldn't get enough of it.

A somewhat related issue involves fish. Many countries, including most of South America and most of SE Asia, have NO access to fish, so as world demand for Fish increases with rising Consciousness and wealth, the supply of fish on the world market dries up, bought up by the leading countries, leaving ALL of your pops unable to meet even their basic needs. It's broken at least one game each as Brazil, Argentina, and Dai Nam (Seriously? Those countries can't fish?), where my pops revolted repeatedly and there were virtually no promotions because the pops were all starving for Fish.