I would have thought that for the driver or for anyone with alcohol problems such drinks are much appreciated.
We have an alcohol free rose wine in stock for such people and I have to say, I am happy to drink it at lunchtime instead of the real thing. It tastes pretty good and means the afternoon can be productive rather than dozing the afternoon away.

and I have been told it makes a very acceptable G&T flavoured non-alcoholic drink. Not tried it myself so cannot confirm.

I understand they are quite popular. I like gin and tonic as it isn't too sweet, so have been tempted to try the alcohol free gins although they are more expensive than actual gin. One of our local restaurants does a really nice selection of alcohol free cocktails using bitters, ginger beer, citrus and elderflower to create really interesting nom sweet drinks.

I notice a lot less alcohol is drunk by the current 20 somethings than there used to be. Obviously a blow for the drink manufacturers but good for the health service. Apparently wine sales are declining as well.

At what point is the alcohol duty levied and on whom?

The manufacturer at the time of production or the consumer at the point of purchase?

Most if not all supposed alcohol free beers contain some alcohol, 0.5% or 0.05% according to who is spouting the figure.

I unwittingly had alcohol recently in a Boeuf Bourgignon, it was lovely and I was trying to work out what the astringent element of the sauce was, it seemed sort of familiar from a long while back..............

And then the penny dropped, what a muppet!!!!

It actually tasted a tiny bit overpowering but were I still a wine drinker it would not have seemed so.

The quoted figures of alcohol content are get out of jail free cards.  It is not possible to remove all of the alcohol.  indeed if you buy ripe fruit it probably contains some alcohol and quite possibly more than non-alcoholic drinks.  So a minimal number is quoted below which all produce is guaranteed to lie.  0.5% is a lazy and very safe number.  0.0% means you have to be below 0.05%.  

Unless alcohol is added at the last minute to a food - think Xmas pud or crepe suzette - then most of the alcohol will no longer be there.  But never all.

As to duty, I think in the UK duty is applied at bottling - or in rare cases at the point of sale of the barrel.   Strictly it is as the wine/beer/spirit/whatever is released from bonded store.  Of course if duty has been applied to your bottle of something nice/special, then you pay the duty in the sales price - but it is actually paying the duty already paid back up the supply chain.  So say a producer makes a drink with a saleable value  of €8.5 but with duty of €1.5, the sales value becomes €10, because the producer has had to pay €1.5 duty to the government.  The supermarket chain then adds its mark up of say 40%.  So the sales price to us the customer is €14 + VAT with €1.5 that has already been paid.  This means the government cashes in twice on the duty,  once an the payment and then on the VAT on the portion of the price that was duty - another 30c.