The systemwide approach to the analysis of consumer demand considers the multivariate structure of the problem in which the consumer allocates his income to all goods simultaneously. This approach combines the theory of the consumer with empirical analysis and has enjoyed much popularity over the past decade. For surveys of these developments, see Brown and Deaton (1972), Phlips (1974), Powell (1974), Theil (1975-76, 1980), Barten (1977), and Theil and Clements (1980). Most previous applications of the systemwide approach have used national accounts commodity groups (food, clothing, housing, and so on). For many business and government policy purposes, however, these groups are much too broad. For example, to analyze the effects on consumption of all but the simplest changes in indirect taxes, we would need considerably more disaggregation. Similarly, market researchers need to analyze demand at the individual product level for purposes of forecasting and formulating pricing and other policies. The objective of this paper is to use the consumption of beer, wine, and spirits to illustrate how the approach can be apThis paper illustrates how the systemwide approach to consumer demand can be extended so that it can be applied to narrowly defined commodity groups. We use the consumption of beer, wine, and spirits to show how the approach can be applied to estimate income and price elasticities of demand. When the consumer's utility function is appropriately separable in alcoholic beverages and all other goods, it is possible to confine our attention to the three beverages and ignore all other goods. We use the demand model for a number of simulations designed to analyze the rapid growth of wine consumption. * We are indebted to John Davis, Peter Goldschmidt, and Kal Stening for excellent research assistance, to Michael Wohlgenant and Henri Theil for helpful comments and discussion, and to the New South Wales Drug and Alcohol Authority for their partial financial support of this research.