As far as practical and possible ... yes
There's a very handy website called
www.barnivore.com that can tell you in a few seconds if that beer that is on sale in the supermarket is vegan friendly or not. So if I encounter a new beer, I always check that.
Rule of thumb ... English beer ... bad ... German beer ... good (That one is always a safe bet, since beer brewed in Germany had to be vegan by law since about 500 years).
Some things are easy to know ... Bailey's has cream, mead has honey, and Campari has carmine. Most other spirits are vegan friendly, but it is always better to check. I typically either use replacements (e.g. Aperol instead of Campari) or simply do without the stuff. So no more Bailey's for me....
Where it is difficult for me is wine ... I confess that I still have about 100+ bottles of wine that have been in my wine rack for the last decade or longer and most of those were produced using non-vegan ingredients.
To explain ... I had been "collecting" wines at home since the 1990's ... Collecting meaning that if I found a good wine, e.g. by checking the awards that are given by Italian food magazines every year like "Best wine below 15 EUR", then I would buy a box or two of that and store it, instead of just going to the shop and buying one bottle to drink right now. That way I had built up a little collection of affordable but decent wines from which I could always make a choice. Unfortunately, only very recently have vintners started to produce wines without using animal ingredients in the "clearing" process. There were the odd "organic wines" before that that did not use it, but every wine you would encounter in the supermarket 10 years ago would be very likely not vegan friendly.
So ... what to do? I have not bought any new wines since going vegan, and the ones I have are still in storage at a friends place in Germany since we moved to Asia 3 years ago. I might just start giving those away to friends and start collecting vegan wines, if I do find nice ones.
Best regards,
Andy
