Australia also is the worlds most efficient sugar cane grower. Sugar, as we know, makes great raw material for alcohol.
The following is something I knocked up a while back. It's not quite in line with this thread, but near enough:
Supply and demand in a post nuclear world
For the frontline soldier, the first two things they'll start to miss are Tobacco and Coffee. Now, any decent military will have a pretty nice supply of Ye Olde Java, but cigarettes will become more scarce, since smokers will probably be smoking MORE (Nuclear apocalypse is a pretty stressful thing), while non-smokers might just start. Civilians will want both of those, along with the stuff already mentioned, (salt, pepper, soap, etc.) I can see the guy who was driving a truck for Shoprite when the faeces hit the fan doing quite well on the growing black market.
Something that needs to be kept in mind is that globally, the war and associated diseases, famine and social unrest have claimed over 50% of the worlds population - that's in the order of about 3 BILLION people. Areas such as Silesia in south-western Poland had been hit even harder. From a pre-war population of 3 million, there are barely 100,000 by mid 2000. That's 29 out of every 30 people dead (though probably not buried).
So what does this mean for the luxury items such as soap, tobacco and so on? Well for a start the immediately available stocks of said items have a much lower demand. This is of course more than offset by the almost total lack of a distribution network. While many areas have a serious shortage, other areas (production regions or warehousing facilities) might just have more than anyone could dream of. The continued existence of these stockpiles could be put down to all the workers in the area having succumbed to the various diseases, moved away to a better area (take the mass migration in the US during 2001 due to the drought), or perhaps able bodied persons being drafted, enslaved or otherwise forcibly removed.
As time goes past of course, trade routes would begin to reopen as enterprising individuals and groups stumble upon these stockpiles or re-establish communications using animal drawn caravans and the odd alcohol powered vehicle. Items that originated in far-flung parts of the globe would remain in extremely short supply (spices from the orient in western Europe for example) with the occasional injection into the market from the aforementioned stocks. Small amounts would also be scavenged from the dead (cigarettes, soap, etc), abandoned houses and shops. Most of this "ready supply" would be quickly exhausted as people caught on to the benefits gained with looting.
Salt and sugar aren't too hard to produce locally. If close to the sea, drying pans filled with sea water can provide copious amounts within the space of a few weeks (much longer in colder climates or winter). Salt mines are also another option and would once more become profitable.
Sugar can be produced from cane (in tropical regions) or sugarbeet in colder latitudes. Other than that, there are plenty of sweet substitutes, honey being a prime example.
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