Anyone who enjoys a good glass of wine - and I include myself in that number - could be accused of bias in favour of a financial secretary who abolishes duty on alcohol sales. Critics might even say we are looking at John Tsang Chun-wah's maiden budget through rose-tinted spectacles.
But apart from the abolition of alcohol tax (except on spirits) - which the Liberal Party has long argued for to boost our tourism industry and strengthen our position as a centre for fine dining - there were plenty of other reasons for good cheer in what Mr Tsang announced on February 27.
It was a budget that did a great deal to return wealth to the people by repaying some of the vast government fiscal surplus to those whose industry and enterprise created the wealth in the first place.
It was a budget that went a long way towards satisfying our appeal to the financial secretary to use the opportunity presented by the surplus to help the less well-off in our society without being either reckless or overly cautious with our money.
It was a budget that has been toasted and applauded. Nearly three-quarters of people interviewed in a University of Hong Kong poll said they were satisfied with the budget, and I gave it nine marks out of 10.
But I feel Mr Tsang missed an opportunity to be a fraction bolder, to go slightly further and to achieve a little more.
On a positive note, reverting salary taxes to their 2002-03 level was an important step to ease the burden on the middle classes, whose hard work and sacrifice helped Hong Kong out of the downturn five years ago.
The 1 per cent reduction in profits tax will also help put money back in the pockets of the workers in small and medium-sized companies who have triumphed over challenging economic times to bring Hong Kong back to its current levels of prosperity.
The Liberal Party supports reserving some land for hotel use only to help ease the shortage of hotel rooms. We hope this land can be auctioned soon and applications processed quickly so that the quality hotels we need can be online as soon as possible.
We also welcome the abolition of hotel accommodation tax and, as I began this column by saying, the alcohol duty. I hope these savings will be passed on fully, fairly and quickly to tourists, diners and drinkers.
Some measures we hoped would be introduced were not. Among them was the suspension of the levy on the hiring of domestic helpers, which has already accumulated HK$4 billion. The money is being put to use for rehiring but there is no need to carry on collecting it when such a large sum is already waiting to be put to use.
Along with other political parties, we also hoped to see the old-age allowance raised to HK$1,000, a move that would cost relatively little - an additional HK$1.7 billion a year - and yet make a huge difference to the lives of our senior citizens. Mr Tsang instead opted for a one-off grant of HK$3,000.
We would like to have seen health care vouchers for the elderly introduced at a level of HK$1,000 a year rather than HK$250 a year. We would like to have also seen home loan interest relief increased from HK$100,000 to HK$150,000 and the abolition of the 10-year limit on such relief.
Here, again, we were disappointed and felt the budget did not go quite as far as we would have liked, although we welcome the earmarking of HK$50 billion to promote health care reform in Hong Kong.
However, politics is the art of compromise and it would be churlish for us to have expected to see every one of our expectations met in what was an otherwise stimulating and invigorating budget that will do much good for Hong Kong.
Yet, for all its flavour and verve, this vintage 2008 budget fell just a little way short of what it might have been, and what anyone in the political arena has the right to demand on behalf of our ingenious and hard-working citizens: the absolute best.
James Tien Pei-chun is chairman of the Liberal Party