cocktail

I am not going to the store as often as I used to — but when I do — I can’t escape the cavalcade of RTD spirits cocktails. That’s good for Flavorman and other formulators. It’s also good for our firm because it’s a lot of work, compared to when something similar is prepared at a bar or your home.

Earlier this year I talked this over with one of the premier flavor companies and alcohol beverage formulators out there. The full article is here and a hefty excerpt is here:

Canned spirits cocktails are one of the biggest trends at TTB in recent years. Even though the explosion of hard seltzers probably gets more attention, TTB approved more than 370 ready-to-drink (RTD) spirits labels for margaritas in just the past five years. This is to say nothing about the many other well-recognized RTD cocktail types, such as bloody marys, martinis and so forth.

The purpose of this article is to give you a heads up that it can be surprisingly painful to get such products approved. Every time we say we’ve handled scores of grasshoppers, for example, in the past, we are in for new and unpleasant surprises, to the extent we start to think it’s routine. I will run through some of the...

Because the term “Molotov Cocktail” has been so widely used (for at least 70 years), I would have expected somebody to grab onto it and apply it to alcohol beverages sooner. It was not until July of 2011 that somebody grabbed onto it, as in the case of Evil Twin Brewing above. In this case the name relates to the “explosive” and “arrogant” amount of hops in this beer. A few years earlier, Molotov Hoptail had roughly the same idea. Hoptail gets extra points because the brewpub is just down the street and a delightful addition to the neighborhood.

I probably would have expected the term to get applied to something more akin to a traditional “cocktail” and less akin to a traditional beer. But perhaps TTB would have been concerned about the use of cocktail-type language on a spirit that is other than a “recognized cocktail.” TTB has various rules about recognized cocktails, such as pre-mixed margaritas, daiquiris and the like. For example, the BAM says a daiquiri must contain rum and lime, and a margarita must contain Tequila, triple sec and citrus. A few of these cocktails are vaguely reminiscent of the above, at least as to sound: Black Russian, White Russian, Brandy Alexander,...