NATCHEZ &045; Tired of high gas prices?

If you want to drown your sorrows in Natchez’s own Old South Winery’s finest, it’ll cost you $32.50 per gallon &045; but that’s five bottles of the muscadine wine.

Gas in Natchez costs an average of about $2.44 per gallon, a price that has fluctuated over the summer but has risen along with national prices to what might seem an all-time high until adjusted for inflation. The all-time high gas prices, once adjusted for inflation, actually occurred in the early 1980s.

But what do gallons of other Natchez products cost?

A cold glass of tea from City Caf is $1, so a gallon of the sweet stuff is about $8. At Mammy’s Cupboard, a gallon of their famous blueberry lemonade is $10 per gallon.

Barbecue sauce from Pig Out Inn is $22 per gallon. And at Uptown Grocery, a gallon of chicken salad is approximately $71.60, a rough estimate since it’s sold by the pound and not in liquid measurements.

But the businesses that sell these products are feeling the pinch of high gas and energy products as much as consumers.

&uot;Energy prices in general are higher,&uot; said Scott Galbreath of Old South Winery. &uot;It’s not going to break us, but it does affect our bottom line. What can we do? You’ve got to pay it and keep going.&uot;

Gas prices can affect everything from delivery costs to the cost of products &045; and some other things you might not think of. Jim Anderson of Uptown Grocery has noticed an increase in the cost of petroleum-based products like the plastic containers used for his chicken salad.

&uot;Our chicken salad costs more than it did when we opened,&uot; he said. &uot;It’s just the cost of living.&uot;

But Americans aren’t paying nearly as much as many Europeans for gas. In Norway, for example, gas has hit an all-time high of $6.68 in U.S. dollars.