policy

Red Deer wine claims to be “Tree Free.” We could only guess that this means the labels are made from rice, or something other than trees. But no. The UPC label explains that the wine is “Untouched by oak – The ‘naturelle’ fruit characters of the wine are not overwhelmed by additives commonly introduced by man – LIKE OAK.” We are getting the impression they don’t like oak. The label says the producer is part of a sustainable resource initiative. It also refers to the “Intense body,” and TTB often disallows “intense” on table wines (where it suggests a high alcohol content). In other green beverages, Rainforest Gin claims it “Saves the Rain Forest with Every Bottle.” Of gin. Made in Cleveland.

Cary Wiggins alerted us to a recent, scholarly article about, of all things, the F-word. His blog, called Meeting the Sin Laws, covers the intersection of sin, vice, alcohol beverages, and the law.

Wiggins points to The Connotations of the F-Word. This is a post in The Language Log; it is a blog run out of the University of Pennsylvania since 2003. The post is by Chris Potts, a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He wants to get a better understanding of why people tend to remain so fascinated with this term (and other “taboo vocabulary”). He wants to know:

Does it in fact have sexual connotations even when used as an intensive, as in Bono’s “really, really f-ing brilliant”?

Ed. note: F-word modified. It’s not an idle topic; the FCC needs to grapple with this and so does TTB. Potts applies some fancy academics to this not so fancy topic, with cosine measures, cooccurrences, fleeting expletives, formal linguistic theories, latent semantic analysis, and even rubrics of framing. He does not necessarily conclude that the term has much to do with sex.

This topic has a fair amount of relevance here, because this terminology pops up on alcohol beverage labels more often than you...

Here is the tale of two Tilts. One was approved in June of 2007, and the other was approved a bit over a year later. The lower, older (orange) one claims caffeine, ginseng and guarana as ingredients. The upper, newer (green) one claims none of these things. Why? Lyke 2 Drink and The Syracuse newspaper reports:

Anheuser-Busch Inc. will stop producing caffeinated alcohol beverages under an agreement reached with attorneys general in 11 states, including New York, said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said today. … Under the agreement, Anheuser-Busch will reformulate its Tilt malt beverage and Bud Extra beer to remove caffeine and guarana, a caffeine-bearing berry, company officials said.

This change seems to be well under way.