flavored malt beverage

Tea with a bit of ethyl kick seems to be one of the most popular trends of the past year. TTB has approved many brands, and these are two of the biggest. Southern Comfort Sweet Tea Cocktail is classified as a liqueur, at 15% alc./vol. The back label proclaims it — “exciting.” Jack Daniel’s Sweet Tea is classified as a malt beverage with natural flavors. It has 2/3 less alcohol. Google Maps says the products are made 5 miles apart, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Today we have dandelion wine. This piqued our interest because we have heard faint murmurings about dandelion wine for many decades but never really tasted it or knew much about it, so we thought it was time to get a handle on the situation. As it turns out, the murmurings seem to have more to do with Ray Bradbury’s 1957 novel of the same name, and less to do with the popularity of this wine. We find very little information about the history of this wine. Bigger Than Your Head describes it as well as anyone else we could find:

The closest I have come to a glass of dandelion wine was reading Ray Bradbury’s evocative novel about Midwestern small-town life, Dandelion Wine, about 50 years ago. … One expects a flower wine to be sweet, and this was, but it wasn’t as sweet as I had anticipated. In fact, I found it delicate, finely structured and just balanced by clean acidity. Aromas of spiced pear and fig wafted from the glass, with hints of dusty meadows. In the mouth, those spiced pear and fig qualities persisted, with touches of something wild and foxy, a little weedy, all of this encompassed by a texture that was almost oily. The finish brought in cinnamon and hay....

The back label says CONTAINS SUCRALOSE AND ACESULFAME POTASSIUM. The front label says PREMIUM MALT BEVERAGE WITH NATURAL FLAVORS AND ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS. We think this is noteworthy due to the unabashed use of artificial sweeteners. Perhaps this marks a trend toward a much wider use of artificial sweeteners, in beverages so commonly sweetened with sugar over so many centuries. It is partly a liberalization, on the part of FDA and TTB, allowing a wider variety of sugar substitutes. It may also be due to forward-thinking companies getting way out in front of the eventual need to disclose calories and carbohydrates. IFIC says sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, derived from sugar and:

can be used in place of sugar to eliminate or reduce calories in a wide variety of products. … Sucralose was discovered in 1976. … In 1998, [FDA] approved the use of sucralose in 15 food and beverage categories — the broadest initial approval ever given to a food additive.

Acesulfame Potassium, according to Wiki, is:

a calorie-free artificial sweetener, also known as Acesulfame K or Ace K (K being the symbol for potassium), and marketed under the trade names Sunett and Sweet One. … It was discovered accidentally in 1967 by German chemist Karl Clauss at Hoechst AG (now...