About two years ago we showed spirits in the form of whipped cream. Last year we showed spirits in the form of an ice pop (more commonly known as a popsicle).
Just last week we showed various chocolate wines, to underscore the movement toward “The Dessertification of Beverages.” Nathan added a comment, asking how long until a convergence between spirits and ice cream. Within the same week, TTB approved a line of ice cream products, with about as much alcohol content as a light beer. snoBaR is made by Brothers International Desserts, of Irvine, California. Brothers seems to be mainly an ice cream company, more than a spirits company. So far, Brothers has approvals for Pink Squirrel (with brandy and amaretto, as above), Grasshopper (with brandy and creme de menthe), and Brandy Alexander (with brandy and creme de cocoa). All of them are about 4% alc./vol. — a fair amount more than the rum raisin ice creams of an earlier era. Baskin-Robbins tends to suggest that their Rum Raisin is made with little if any rum, while Häagen-Dazs suggests that at least a little rum is used.
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The Dessertification of Beverages (aka The ChocoVine Sensation)
Congratulations to Clever Imports for propelling ChocoVine into one of the biggest trends across wine and spirits in recent years. The brand seems to be growing at well over 100% per year, and at about 1 million cases per year, may just be getting going, in view of the recent deal with The Wine Group. ChocoVine is wine with chocolate and cream; it is produced in Holland by DeKuyper.
At first, many people spoke snidely of ChocoVine, suggesting that grape wine is not the best match with chocolate flavors. But, to a large extent, this condescension has been overshadowed by admiration, purchasing, and emulators. Chocolais is one example of a chocolate flavored wine that has hastened down the path cleared by Steve Katz at Clever. But there are well more than a handful of other, substantially similar examples, such as this one. TTB approved the first ChocoVine label in 2007. Three years later, TTB approved the first Chocolais label and the first Choco Noir label, both in November of 2010.
A bit further afield from ChocoVine, hundreds of other examples continue to accrue, further showing tremendous momentum behind a trend toward the dessertification of beverages. Here we have Pineapple Upside Down Cake Liqueur, various alcohol infused whipped creams, and cupcake flavored vodka. Let us know of other examples and what you think.
TTB Products from Majority Muslim Countries
I can find plenty of alcohol beverages made in Romania, for example, from the above lookup at TTB’s website. But I can’t find anything from Saudi Arabia.
Oh yes, it’s easy to say that Saudi Arabia is a major, majority-Muslim country and so I should not expect to find a single drop of alcohol beverages flowing out from or in to that country. Wikipedia says no less than 100% of the population is Muslim.
On the other hand, Turkey has far more Muslims, at 99% of the population — and no less than 370 label approvals in the TTB database. A recent wine approval is here.
Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country and also has about 25 label approvals in the database. Here is Panther Beer.
Algeria has at least a few approvals. A wine example is here. Morocco has a few hundred approvals, with a recent wine example here. Egypt has a code, but I don’t see any approvals.
Rounding out the top 14 Muslim countries, the following countries (in addition to Saudi Arabia) do not even have a TTB lookup code: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sudan. Some of these countries are so strict that not even soy sauce or vanilla extract is tolerated.
Streamlining COLAs?
It may be safe to put away that gnarly old ruler, from fifth grade. A few days ago, TTB announced that it will ease up on scrutinizing your cpi’s and mm’s. At first this sounds like a good thing, and the “streamlining” as described — because many are the frustrations about waiting on a coveted COLA — only to find it lying in the tatters of rejection, because of a few letters too big or too small.
Industry Circular 2011-04 says:
(TTB) will no longer examine labels to determine whether the images included in the applications meet the type size, characters per inch, and contrasting background requirements. As a result, TTB will no longer return applications for correction due to these issues. However, TTB reserves the right to review and return applications for these reasons when it deems necessary.
In some ways this may be good, especially if it speeds up the system and makes TTB more efficient. But the main effect may be a shift of this not so trivial burden over to the applicant. There is no change to the various CFR rules requiring all your cpi’s and mm’s to be just right, and this Circular in no way mitigates that burden. In fact, TTB hastens to add: “The responsible industry member has always been obligated to ensure proper labeling for their products. In order to remind industry members of their continued responsibility for compliance, TTB will now include a qualification statement on all COLAs consistent with the purpose of this circular.” A real-world and early example is here (see just below the signature). If you think it’s not fun to get a “needs correction” notice after a few weeks, saying a few letters are too small — compare it to the pain of being told the same after you shipped a few hundred thousand cases.
There is no shortage of changes at TTB in recent months. In addition to all the changes noted here and above, TTB also brought back (a somewhat more limited form of) label expedites a few days ago.
Caricatures
Holy smokes, change really is afoot at TTB. I was startled to see these wine labels recently, with various and sundry famous politicians emblazoned all upon them, and not in the most flattering light. I suppose there is some extra latitude for parody- or caricature-type speech, and there certainly is or ought to be latitude as to political speech. But often in the past, TTB has disallowed presidentially-oriented labels. Just two years ago, the line was drawn here, as to President Obama, and this one seemed to go too far.
The abstraction, in these caricatures, seems to help, as does the absence of the full names. The Horizon Cellars Winery, of Siler City, North Carolina has a large series of the labels depicted above. We already pointed to various labels with Former President George Bush and Sarah Palin in the past, so today we elected to highlight Former Vice President Dick Cheney, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Former President Bill Clinton.
But there are other reasons to revel in these labels. Any discussion of Joe Biden would be embarrassingly remiss without a fond recollection of that storied day when Joe Biden washed his Trans Am, in cutoffs and no shirt, out back behind the White House.
Big Changes at TTB
In recent weeks, TTB has implemented sweeping changes, with little attention from the media. Some of the changes are for the better, but many will make it substantially harder for beverage producers and importers to get things done. These changes will affect companies and products as profoundly as any other changes at this agency over the past few decades, no less than other big changes such as tax rates, the shift from ATF to TTB, the Part 13 revocation rules, the demise of caffeine alcohol beverages, or new Administrators. It is difficult to think of any law change or policy change with as much day-to-day impact on the regulated parties, and much of this was done with no opportunity for meaningful industry input.
- The big changes begin way back in 2003, with the launch of COLAs Online, and pick up speed in the past year. Much of the change brought by COLAs Online is for the better. The system works well and frequently makes things faster and easier.
- In late 2009, TTB slashed their availability for in-person visits. For many prior years or decades, it was relatively easy to meet with a regulator, in the labeling and formula division, any weekday from 10-noon or 1-3 (four hours a day). Beginning about a year ago, TTB unceremoniously cut this to one paltry hour per day (a reduction of 75 percent). During this meager time, it can be very difficult to find anyone to help (like a game of musical chairs with 10 contestants and 2 chairs).
- Around the same time, TTB scrambled the phone numbers. From the beginning of TTB until this point, it was fairly easy to locate the person responsible for your label or formula issue, and speak directly with that person. No more. All the numbers changed, and the new numbers, for the most part, are not publicly available. Instead, it’s necessary to call a main number and try to get transferred to the right person. Sometimes this works well but in a recent example I called the main number throughout an entire Friday and nobody picked up during the entire day. Even if you get through, good luck getting past the obvious (“it’s in process”). Eventually, after dozens of calls, we reached a supervisor and that person was extremely helpful — but this is the sort of thing that used to be much easier.
- In January 2011, TTB rolled out Formulas Online (FONL). Like COLAs Online (at point 1 above) this seems like a good system and something that could help the regulated industry. It looks like the days of paper formulas are essentially over.
- In February 2011 TTB rolled out Permits Online (PONL). We will report on FONL and PONL later.
- Then, in the first week of February 2011, TTB dropped the hammer here and said you should be prepared for labels to take up to 90 days (or more, if they need revisions) — and formulas could take another 90 days. Beyond that, there is no more safety valve to request an expedite in exigent circumstances. This will be a profound and devastating change for many companies. If you have a bright idea for a new product, you could be looking at 6-8 weeks to get the flavors approved, then another 8-10 weeks to get formula approval, then another 8-10 weeks to get label approval. This is if you are lucky and all these things actually get approved. Then of course you have more weeks of getting bottles, printing labels, shipping, etc. Before this big change, it was entirely possible to get an urgent label approved within 2-3 days, and we had no trouble getting this done on hundreds of occasions over many years. It is easy to say companies should allow a bit more time; but in many ways that’s a silly platitude, and we are talking about no small amounts of time. At what point does it get ridiculous and scarcely worth the bother of launching a new product? Should it really take 27 weeks or so to change Bud Light Lime to Bud Light Lemon? This is quite amazing in that, TTB has finally, over the course of eight years, launched various modern and computerized systems, mainly to make all these processes flow more readily. And yet, during the same time, the wait for a typical label approval has gone from a few hours to a few weeks (or even months?). Partly this is a function of a huge number of labels being submitted. TTB is getting something like 140,000 labels per year. And there is only one person in the entire federal system to handle beer labels, and only one person to handle all the world’s spirits labels. In some ways it seems that TTB may have succeeded too much, and made the label filing process a bit too easy (with few if any filters or barriers to submitting a few more bright or not so bright label ideas here and there; for example, there are no user fees).
It is possible that I am being too cynical, and these various changes will allow TTB to get away from distractions and focus on cranking through swarms of electronic submissions. If I am being too negative, nobody will be more delighted than I, if TTB proves me wrong, or shows that these things are actually big improvements. It would also be helpful to hear from the old timers, who have been getting things done at TTB since well before I started in 1988. For example, maybe Tom, Ann, Deb, Vicky, or Fred will chime in about the good(?) old days. Way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, well before all these amazing gadgets and Oklahoma City, it is bittersweet to recall a seemingly bygone era. When you could wander the halls of the ATF building without an escort. When you could show up in the afternoon with a stack of paper labels, wait your turn with only a few people ahead of you, sit down with the decision maker, and walk out an hour later with a stack of label approvals. When you could talk it over with the regulator, change a few rejections into a few approvals with an argument, a prior approval, a few strokes of a pen, a use-up, or a warning.
These changes will hit hard on small companies and big companies. They will also have a big impact on Washington-based lawyers and consultants, but at least the lawyers and consultants have plenty of tools, and they aren’t busy trying to make wine. It could be worse. It’s possible. TTB could cut the hours another 75%, to 15 minutes a day, or change the 90 days to 180. Right about now, however, it would be nice to see some trends in the other direction.