And while it's ridiculous that you can't buy cold beer stronger than 3.5% by volume, and can't do it on a Sunday, I still wouldn't switch to any of the system in any country I have lived in (E.g. Australia, UK). I wouldn't mind the prices of beer in a bar to be more reasonable but what can you do.

What's expensive in .se is the alcohol, not the alcholic products. That makes the price of some cheap products very high, most notably gin/vodka etc, which carry a price that may be 3x higher than elsewhere (Worth noting of course is that even at these prices they aren't nearly paying their own damages). That is only half the story though, products like decent wine and single malt whisky is actually very well priced, and often cheaper than in their respecive countries of origin. In the uk a crap bottle of wine is £3, in sweden twice that. A good bootle of wine in the uk is £20 and can be half that in Sweden. Prices are very compressed, which makes it an excellent place to be drinking decent stuff.

I know you were likely sort of tounge-in-cheek about the alcohol issue, but really there are lots of aspects that are way worse. Just take the fact that the day (if you can even call it that) in Sweden today was 5 hours long... That will drive you nuts no matter what the cost of booze is :D

The only correct item here is about Systembolaget -- the state-run liquor store. Everything else is outright wrong. Prices are more, but not 2x or 3x more. And on many mid-priced wines the prices are lower due to buying power.

The major chains are either private, partnerships, or Franchise models -- ICA, Lidl (German-owned), Hemkop (Owned by AxFoods), Willys, etc.

Also, though grocery stores are not 24/7, most are open 7 days a week up to 10 or 11pm.

If this is you major complaint, I'm not sure you can call it "not a fairy tale". There is a vast body of research (e.g. [1]) that points out the public health benefits of this alcohol policy. Scandinavians also have a very different drinking culture than their southern neighbours; as the article you link to notes, more than 65% of the population drink 0 units from Monday through Thursday, and then drink a lot during the weekend. When the drinking habits are so different from continental Europe, why should public policy be the same?

[1] http://www.dldocs.stir.ac.uk/documents/nad42.pdf

> The Swedish government has a monopoly on the sell of alcohol, price is two to three times more expensive than the rest of Europe

Look, sure the industrially produced crap is expensive, but the good stuff is cheap! In Norway, Finland and Sweden, never buy whatever has the lowest price, it's in the mid-range you get the good stuff. Try to shop for some good single malt whiskey, XO+ Cognac, aged rum -- or just good wine (not "table wine") -- and you're likely to find that the government stores carry a wide variety, and that prices aren't all that high.

Now, if you want a cheap bottle of wine... yeah. You won't find anything you can just use to reduce a sauce without feeling like you're lighting money on fire.

I remember going to a wine tasting, and a representation from France said that the (now no longer) specialist store in Oslo was one of the best Wine shops in all of Europe -- because they had such a great variety. You can go to France and find wines they don't carry, but on the other hand they have great French wines, and great wines from all over the world.

All that said, I'm not happy that there's no such thing as a cheap, good beer in Norway...

Eg:

http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/a+e+dor+vielle+reserve+no+...

http://www.vinmonopolet.no/vareutvalg/druebrennevin/frankrik...

A random Systembolaget matches a speciality store in essentially any major city of the world in terms of selection and price, not to talk of the less major ones. I'll take that fairy tale over being able to buy the local cheap lager at the corner store any day.

Sugar + yeast + heat source = vodka. Problem solved.