policy

TTB put out Ruling 2016-3 at the end of September. It relates to spirits formula approvals, and is intended to cut some of the burdens for spirits companies and for TTB. It’s also sort of long. Word says it is 3,573 (carefully chosen) words. My mission is to break it down to 15% or less.

The gist is, TTB will help you avoid formula approval for many products in these big categories: vodka, rum, whisky, brandy. Some details, on each category, are below. If you want the whole story, you can go to the Ruling, and the elaborations at Industry Circular 2016-1 (for imports) and Guidance 2016-3. Rather than knocking out the formula approval requirements in the spirits regulations, TTB explains: “TTB will not accept for review new formulas submitted for products approved under this ruling. This ruling serves as the approval that is required by §§ 5.26, 5.27, and 19.348.”

1. Vodka. The Ruling takes advantage of the fact that vodka already has a narrow standard of identity and explains that if you are clearly within it, the Ruling should be used instead of submitting a formula. Only a bit of sugar and citric acid allowed.
2. Rum. The standard is not quite so narrow, as compared to vodka, but it’s...

TTB’s website at www.ttb.gov can be pretty helpful. Here are a few of the pages we check most often.

1. TTB Newsletter. This comes out about once a week and can be very useful. For example, the August 19, 2016 edition provided background information about Tom Crone – with 53 years of federal service!
2. Formula Tool. Don’t guess about whether you need a formula approval. If you guess, you are likely to be wrong because it’s not always intuitive. For example, why does all sake need a formula approval (and lab analysis) – when other fermented rice beverages (such as beer) don’t? If you make this mistake, it can be time-consuming and costly. With this tool, you can check most any class/type, and get a better view of what needs a TTB formula approval, and what does not.
3. FAQs. TTB here answer dozens of common questions. One example is, what is “pear cider”?
4. Public COLA Registry. This is a good place to look up all or almost all recent COLAs. At this point it goes back 20 years or more. We say almost because it does not cover wine coolers, kombucha – or other products that happen to be alcohol beverages, but don’t fall within TTB’s labeling jurisdiction. Last time we checked,...

I keep hearing about a Bud label that is so overflowing with patriotic hues and cries, that there is no room for the term Budweiser. For example, this Chicago Tribune article, from just a few hours ago, suggests that the label is under scrutiny somewhere deep within the belly of the bureaucracy.

Lo and behold, however, the label at issue got approved way back here, on March 1, 2016.

I have no idea whether this marketing plan (taking the Americana theme to the extreme and then quite a bit further) is a good idea. On the other hand, it’s difficult to find any basis for the government to have disallowed this label. At first I thought it might not mention the brand name at all, but it does, on the neck label. Then I thought maybe, somehow, it was so weighed down with homages to America, and so dressed up so as to resemble U.S. currency, that the term Beer did not fit on the label. But again, it is there, barely, this time at the upper right. If real patriotism were similar to the commercial kind, I would love to take a small measure of credit for this. We worked on this Ol’ Glory beer label about five years ago, and...