TTB Issues New Guidelines for 'Gluten-Free' Labeling

The labeling of alcoholic beverage is regulated by the Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau of the United States Treasury (TTB).

On Tuesday, TTB announced that it has completed its review of how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) final rule on the use of the term 'gluten‐free' in the labeling of products under FDA’s labeling jurisdiction impacts TTB’s interim policy on gluten content statements in the labeling and advertising of wines, distilled spirits, and malt beverages, previously set forth in TTB Ruling 2012‐2.

As a result of TTB's review and consultation with FDA, the Bureau is updating its policy on gluten labeling. Given the important consumer health considerations relating to 'gluten-free' claims, TTB believes it is important to be as consistent as possible with the regulations FDA issued.

Under TTB's updated policy, alcoholic beverages that are made from ingredients that do not contain gluten, such as wines fermented from grapes or other fruit and distilled spirits distilled from materials other than gluten-containing grains may continue to make 'gluten-free' claims in the same way allowed in the new FDA regulations for inherently gluten-free products. Consistent with the new FDA regulations, TTB will continue to consider 'gluten-free' label claims for alcoholic beverages that are made from gluten-containing grains to be misleading to consumers who are seeking to avoid the consumption of gluten for health reasons.

However, products made from gluten-containing grains may be labeled with a statement that the product was “Processed,” “Treated,” or “Crafted” to remove gluten, if that claim is made together with a qualifying statement that warns the consumer that the gluten content of the product cannot be determined and that the product may contain gluten.

TTB may revise this policy after FDA issues a final rule or other guidance with respect to fermented and hydrolyzed products. In the interim, we remind consumers that the FDA has determined there is still no scientifically valid way to evaluate the claims that beers made from gluten-containing grains can be processed in a way that removes gluten and that there is inadequate evidence about whether such methods are effective.

TTB's Revised Interim Policy on Gluten Content Statements in the Labeling and Advertising of Wine, Distilled Spirits, and Malt Beverages (TTB Ruling 2014-2) can be found on the TTB Website at: http://www.ttb.gov/rulings/2014-2.pdf.

Fountainhead School of Spirits Off to a Great Start

The first Fountainhead School of Spirits class, this past Tuesday, was a big success. We had a full house, too full in fact. We've already decided to sell fewer tickets from now on, to make it a little more comfortable for everyone, including the teacher.

Fountainhead is going above and beyond to make your classroom experience a great one. They already have a dedicated space for us but since we're in the middle of a working bar and restaurant, Fountainhead is hanging heavy curtains in the doorways and in the bar pass-through to cut down on some of the noise. I have a loud voice, but you don't want your teacher yelling at you. You probably had enough of that in middle school.

Fountainhead provides complimentary snacks and you're welcome to order off the menu if you want more. Recognizing that some people will come directly from work and won't have had a chance to get dinner first, you're welcome to eat during class (although table space is tight) or they will reserve a table for you so you can sit down for dinner immediately after class ends, at about 8:30 PM. Fountainhead has great food.

Tickets are selling briskly for the next class, this coming Tuesday, February 18. Here is the direct link to the place to buy tickets. For more information about this and future classes, go here. Fountainhead is located at 1970 W. Montrose Ave, at the corner of Montrose and Damen. Street parking usually is available, it's a short walk from the Brown Line L station, and both Damen and Montrose are served by CTA buses.

Our theme for Tuesday's class is the whiskeys of Heaven Hill. We'll taste Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage Bourbon Whiskey (current year), Larceny Bourbon Whiskey, Rittenhouse Rye BIB, and Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey.

Since this is the first of our distillery-themed classes, it's worth pointing out that it is not being taught by a distillery representative. Part of what you're paying for is a knowledgeable and independent authority, not a marketing presentation from the producer.

Although we're serious about serving up some knowledge, we're serious about having fun too. The class is informal and, considering the tight quarters, you'll probably make a few new friends.

Hope to see you there.

The Whiskey Trust. Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

In 1881, Joseph Benedict Greenhut built the Great Western Distillery in Peoria, Illinois. The production of whiskey and neutral spirits was booming in Peoria and each new distillery was bigger than the last and, therefore, the biggest distillery in the world.

Six years later, Great Western and 65 other distilleries merged to form the Distillers & Cattle Feeders' Trust. Popularly known as the Whiskey Trust, Greenhut became its president.

The Trust used its resources to buy more distilleries, many of which it closed. The idea of the Trust was to limit production industry-wide to reduce competition and protect profits. Although the Trust was technically legal (it would not be today), it engaged in many illegal activities including the intimidation of distillery owners who did not want to sell.

The Trust rationalized its activities by saying it brought order and stability to an often chaotic and wasteful marketplace by eliminating the over-production that sometimes forced producers to sell below cost. Doesn't a 'free market' also give market participants the right to cooperate for the betterment of an entire industry?

Greenhut left the Trust in 1895 when legal and financial problems forced it into receivership. It was never the same but never quite went away either. It kept mutating into different corporate forms. It even survived Prohibition, coming back after repeal as National Distillers. It was no longer a trust, however. Those were now illegal.

By the time Prohibition shuttered the industry in 1920, the Trust or one of its spin-offs controlled every distillery in Peoria. It also owned distilleries in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and other distilling states. After Prohibition, the Trust was supplanted in Peoria by Canada's Hiram Walker and Sons. Walker bought Greenhut's Great Western, tore it down, and built -- you guessed it -- the biggest distillery in the world. (Pictured above.) Today that plant makes grain neutral spirits for Archer Daniels Midland.

It Is Still Illegal to Sell Alcohol Without a License

The following is presented as a public service. This is not legal advice, it is general legal information.

It is illegal to sell alcohol without a license.

This is true everywhere in the United States. There are no exceptions.

This keeps coming up because there are many people who collect whiskey. Whiskey is booming right now and so is whiskey collecting. Collectors of anything, from stamps and coins to Shirley Temple (RIP) memorabilia, usually build their collections by buying, selling, and trading with other collectors. That's normal. It's a big part of the fun of collecting.

But if what you collect is an alcoholic beverage, it's also against the law.

I last wrote about this just ten months ago, here. The Facebook page discussed in that post was taken down a few months ago. To protect the folks involved, I won't say more about it. Before that, eBay did a brisk business in whiskey and other alcoholic beverages. That was taken down too.

Laws regarding the possession, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages are entirely up to each state's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) agency to enforce. They have their own enforcement arms, their own investigators. Infractions of the ABC's rules are not crimes as far as the police are concerned. They don't get involved unless the ABC asks for their help. Someone operating an unlicensed bar or selling liquor out of the back of a minivan, or a licensed retailer selling to minors, that's what they care about. Nobody is looking to bust collectors.

But that doesn't make what collectors do legal. It's still illegal. An observation about patterns of enforcement doesn't change the underlying status of the activity. It's still against the law.

Should those laws be updated? Probably. It is hard to see how whiskey collectors do any harm. But beverage alcohol regulations are notoriously difficult to change. Most of them haven't been touched since Prohibition was repealed 80 years ago.

Social media is full of sites for enthusiasts of all kinds, including whiskey. A persistent problem for those sites is people who try to buy or sell whiskey via the site. Social media sites must be very careful about not allowing participants to advocate law-breaking. Sites that try to enable peer to peer collecting activity without doing anything illegal themselves resort to "Fight Club" rules of secrecy. They don't work. There are constantly people who either don't get it or don't care.

Perhaps this post will reach a few of them.

Big Trouble in Bourbon Country

Bourbon is a Kentucky thing.

The law says you can make bourbon whiskey anywhere in the United States but Kentucky bourbon is special, so special the best-selling American-made whiskey in the world won’t call itself bourbon, even though it is exactly like bourbon, because it isn't made in Kentucky.

Bourbon is a Kentucky thing but it isn't the only Kentucky thing. The Hot Brown is a Kentucky thing. Thoroughbred horses are a Kentucky thing. Bluegrass music is a Kentucky thing. So is barbecued mutton.

Those are all good things, even barbecued mutton.

But not every Kentucky thing is a good thing.

Unfortunately, small-timer syndrome is a Kentucky thing too. Small-timers are people who are obsessed with limits. They are obsessed with failure. They devote way more time to threats than to opportunities. They believe life is always a zero sum game. They most certainly do not believe there is ever more than enough for everyone. They are careful not to aim too high. Better to not take the chance.

Their God is Icarus.

Ask a longtime Louisvillian what happened to the Louisville School of Art or Louisville’s independent public television station. Ask any Kentuckian why UK refused to play U of L in major sports for 60 years.

The reasoning is that having two of something is wasteful. It’s better to have just one because then that one can be better, maybe even outstanding. The possibility that Kentucky could have two or three or four of something and all of them be outstanding is inconceivable to a small-timer.

In no way is everyone in Kentucky a small-timer. Many people are not. The small-timers hate them most of all.

Small-timer syndrome is threatening the best thing that has ever happened to Kentucky, the explosion in American whiskey’s worldwide popularity. When people fall in love with bourbon, the first thing they want to do is go to Kentucky and have a bourbon experience. Maybe they want to tour distilleries but maybe they want to have other kinds of bourbon experiences too. The producers can provide some of that. The new Evan Williams Experience in downtown Louisville is a great example. But the producers can’t do everything and shouldn't try. That’s the genius of the thing. Everything anyone does that provides a visitor with a satisfying bourbon experience inevitably benefits the producers, even when they have nothing to do with it. Who would refuse that deal?

A small-timer.

There are small-timers in Kentucky right now who think they own bourbon. They want to decide who gets to celebrate bourbon, how much and in what way, and if they approve of what you want to do they demand a piece of the action.

They are important people, powerful people.

And there is a very real danger they will screw the whole thing up.

This phenomenon that is American whiskey isn't the property of any producer or group of producers. No one has the right to control it. No one should even try. Ultimately, it is the property of consumers. Anybody who honestly strives to give whiskey drinkers what they want is a friend of the industry. Anybody who tries to limit or stifle how whiskey drinkers can enjoy whiskey and the incredible culture of the land where it is produced is the enemy of the industry, because he has set himself above the interests of whiskey drinkers. Anyone who loses sight of that, who thinks their personal interests or the interests of their organization are more important than the interests of whiskey drinkers is way out of line.

They need to stop it right now.

Ted Huber to Chair DISCUS Small Distiller Affiliate

The Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) today announced that Ted Huber of Huber Starlight Distillery in Starlight, IN, has been named Chairman of its Small Distiller Membership, an affiliate arm for distillers who produce fewer than 100,000 gallons per year. In addition to serving as Chairman, Huber will also attend DISCUS Board of Directors meetings.

To ensure regional representation of the growing small distiller movement across the U.S., the Council also appointed four regional Vice Chairmen. They are Steve Johnson of Vermont Spirits Distilling Co., Hartford, VT (Northeast); Phil Prichard of Prichards’ Distillery, Kelso, TN (South); Guy Rehorst of Great Lakes Distillery, Milwaukee, WI (Midwest); and Tom Mooney of House Spirits, Portland, OR (West).

The Council also announced that an eight-member Advisory Council has been elected by the Small Distiller Affiliate Members for a term through the 2015 Annual Policy Conference. New Advisory Council members include Andrew Auwerda of Philadelphia Distilling, Philadelphia, PA; John Dannerbeck of Anchor Distilling Co., San Francisco, CA; Kent Fleischmann of Dry Fly Distilling, Spokane, WA; Dan Garrison of Garrison Brothers Distillery, Hye, TX; Scott Harris of Catoctin Creek Distilling Co., Purcellville, VA; Wes Henderson of Louisville Distilling Co., Louisville, KY; Paul Hletko of Few Spirits, Evanston, IL; and Lance Winters of St. George Spirits, Alameda, CA.

The Small Distiller Affiliate Membership was launched in 2010. It now numbers more than 80 members in 30 states. Its purpose is to organize the growing number of small distilled spirits producers across the nation and to give them a voice in public policy issues affecting the industry at every level of government.

Beam's New Distribution Center Is Where Else?

Shanken reported yesterday that Beam Inc. has selected a location for its new 600,000-square foot distribution center. The 92-acre tract is at 1509 U.S. Highway 421, a few miles south of Beam's Frankfort, Kentucky, maturation and bottling facility, and closer to Interstate 64.

Construction is expected to begin next month and be completed by year-end. The new DC will be operated by a third-party logistics provider to be named later. It will employ approximately 60 people.

“With two-thirds of Beam’s total spirits volume being produced in Kentucky, having our new distribution facility in close proximity to our production will help us gain increased efficiencies in our supply chain,” said David Hunter, vice president of global manufacturing for Beam.

In addition to the Beam whiskeys and DeKuyper liqueurs that are made in Kentucky, Canadian Club Canadian Whisky and other Beam products made elsewhere are bottled in Kentucky. The new DC probably will free up space at the company's three Kentucky bottling plants at Frankfort, Clermont, and Loretto.

What's next? It makes very little sense for Beam's headquarters to remain in Deerfield, Illinois.