What do these three things have in common? All three are featured in Brad Paisley’s song, “Alcohol.” Of all the songs about alcohol beverages, this one is worth covering, because it mentions specific brands and deals directly with the interplay of alcohol and society. It also has witty lyrics. It would be even better for this blog if it dealt specifically with a legal topic, but perhaps that’s asking too much of Mr. Paisley.

Here are the most pertinent lyrics:

Well I’ve been know to cause a few breakups
And I’ve been known to cause a few births
I can make you new friends
Or get you fired from work

And since the day I left Milwaukee
Lynchburg, Bordeaux France
Been making the bars
Lots of big money
And helping white people dance …
Alcohol. Alcohol

I got blamed at your wedding reception
For your best man’s embarrassing speech
And also for those naked pictures of you at the beach
I’ve influenced kings and world leaders

I am medicine and I am poison
I can help you up or make you fall

The song does a good job of putting the good and bad in perspective.

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This looks like a straightforward label, but it raises some good issues. “Napa” is on the “brand (front)” label. Should it be? On the one hand, it looks to be bottled in the Napa Valley. On the other hand, the appellation is California more broadly, as per box 14 of the label approval. The label mentions Napa three times, attesting to its obvious importance as a signal of quality.

Each reference to Napa tends to be accompanied by a clarifying explanation. One says it’s bottled there, two say the brand’s ownership is there. None of them (explicitly or by omission) suggest the grapes were grown there. TTB has approved quite a few labels presenting the same issues, and they may show a shift in policy, compared to five or ten years ago. It is our understanding that some wineries were blocked from highlighting Napa, regardless of the location of the bottling winery, if the grapes were from elsewhere.

The same label raises one more good (but rather technical) issue. The brand name and alcohol content statement are on one piece of paper. The varietal and appellation are on another. The rules require all four items to be on the brand label. Sometimes, TTB requires all four items on the same piece of paper, sometimes in the same field of vision. Here TTB allowed them to be divided across two pieces of paper in the same field of vision.

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Earlier this week we covered kiwi wine. Today, we go further from grape wine, toward vegetable wine. Rhubarb wine to be exact. Rhubarbinfo.com says it’s a vegetable and on this I will tentatively defer to them.

Assumption Abbey Rhubarb Wine is made by Pointe of View Winery in Burlington, North Dakota. The TTB database has many rhubarb wines, and they tend to be made in states not well known for grape wine, such as Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. None of these labels tend to show an appellation of origin or a vintage date. In a good article about non-grape wine, the San Francisco Chronicle explains:

[TTB] allows fruit wine makers to add sugar, acid and water as needed – natural flavors and colors are even allowed – but they don’t allow a fruit wine to bear a vintage or place-name the way a grape wine does.

“I think it’s a waste to not allow vintage dating,” says Koehler. “You have good and bad years for fruit, just like you do for grapes.”

Those laws aren’t likely to change, if only because of the effort required by the TTB to police them. What does vintage mean to Tedeschi Vineyards when pineapple is available year-round? What does place-name mean to Galarneau when he buys mangoes from around the world?

It is difficult to locate the rules that prevent rhubarb and other non-grape wines from showing the vintage and appellation. Perhaps an astute reader can point them out.

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So far, I see 78 references to wine here, but only three references to fruit wine. So today, I endeavor to correct that imbalance.

The imbalance is not due to any shortage of wines made from other than grapes. There are plenty. Today I will show a couple of wines made from the kiwi fruit. Above is King Kiwi, Kiwi Wine, made in Florida. A second producer of kiwi wines is Shalom Orchard, in Franklin, Maine.

Wiki explains that kiwi has also been know as chinese gooseberry, macaque peach, macaque pear, kiwifruit and melonette over the past century. In the 1950s, big growers pushed the name toward kiwi and away from chinese gooseberry. The latter raised issues during the Cold War. And:

An American importer … complained that melonettes was as bad as Chinese gooseberry because melons and berries were both subject to high import tarriffs, and instead asked for a short Maori name that quickly connoted New Zealand.

One company and brand dominates the worldwide kiwi trade; Zespri ships 2 billion kiwifruits to 70 countries worldwide, from New Zealand.

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In many areas, TTB is fairly literal-minded. For example, if you are bound and determined to mention energy on your label, you are unlikely to get very far, without much regard to context, as in this example. Likewise, good luck if you want to use the term “organic” on anything not in line with the organic rules.

In other areas, though, TTB will view a term much less literally. Mother’s Milk Shiraz is one such example. As best I can tell, it contains no milk. There is a recognition that the term is not to be taken seriously, even though it is quite possible to make a wide variety of alcohol beverages with and from real milk. This vodka distilled from milk is but one example.

If you gave up Mother’s Milk before third grade, you may prefer Dragon’s Milk. Another alternative is Devil’s Milk. Even without ingredient labeling I am reasonably sure that the Devil contributed no milk whatsoever to DuClaw’s ale.

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Quite a few readers have said, “yeah, unusual approvals are great, but what about rejections?” Here we have the first post of many, from time to time, showing common or revealing label rejections.

First, some ground rules. We will not show the brand or company at issue. TTB tends to treat label rejections as confidential and approvals as public, and we’ll mirror this sensible policy. To this end, we may blur out some identifying information where necessary, such as above. In rare cases, we’ll change a little bit of text (in the example above we changed about three letters to avoid the distraction that might otherwise be caused by typos; we did not change the substance). If you have a good and interesting rejection, please let us know and we’ll make sure to treat it in line with the policy above.

On to the controversial term at hand. For many decades, TTB has been concerned about the term “refreshing,” so common on all manner of beverages. TTB’s concern seems to be that it’s awfully close to a therapeutic claim, suggesting an effect on your body. “Invigorating” or “stimulating” would go a bit further and probably raise the same issues. Rather than ban the term “refreshing” outright — which would seem a bit out of proportion to the harm it could cause — TTB frequently says it must be accompanied, in close proximity, by something like “serve chilled.” The above rejection is such an example. It says “The statement ‘refreshing’ must be deleted or the statement ‘on the rocks’ or ’serve chilled’ must be added.” This would tend to make it clearer that any effect on your body is rather innocent and fleeting. It’s not going to cure your eczema or chronic exhaustion.

This Franzia label pretty much shows how TTB wants the term used. “Refreshing” is fairly prominent on this label, but “Serve Chilled” is not too far behind.

By contrast, here are a few that seem to go in the opposite direction. Erik’s Refreshing Riesling does not seem to have much chill talk. Nor does this MillerCoors Honey Moon label (”A Refreshing Summer Ale with Honey & Orange Peel”).

We feel it’s important to set some of these policies out, because a lot of them do not appear in the regulations or BAM. As a result, they are inherently subject to confusion and surprise.

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It’s been a long time since any single wine label got as much press as the one above. We don’t want to rehash the Cycles Gladiator story yet one more time; it is well told here for example. Instead, we are curious about the lines dividing art, free speech and obscenity. TTB is regularly called upon to judge these matters. Today, it’s your turn to judge. Please take a peek (if you dare) and report your opinion in the poll below. A quick view of all four labels is here (this is the fastest and easiest view, for the poll).

Another view, showing the full label approval for each product, is below.

• A.  Cycles Gladiator Red Wine
• B.  Toogood Foreplay Red Wine
• C.  Mendielle Vertu Merlot
• D.  Naughty Nancy’s Nut Brown Ale

Go ahead and vote in the poll or comment or both.

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Molson must be pretty darned excited about the prospects for the above marketing campaign. They seem to have hundreds of label approvals for variations on this theme. A lot of the “Answer Honestly” labels are quite amusing. Molson has a long way to go before passing Twisted Tea in the shocking hugeness of the number of labels submitted and approved.

This massive exercise tends to beg the question, why don’t they just submit a few labels, with a long list of approved permutations alongside. Perhaps TTB wants every one submitted separately but it’s still not clear why that should be the case, as opposed to the relatively common allowance for personalization (Happy Birthday Joe, Trudy, Eleanor, etc.).

Here are a few more good ones, among the hundreds. If you see good ones out in the market, please add them to the list by way of comments.

Answer Honestly, Would You Prefer….

• To be half your height -OR- Twice your weight?
• To be famous and hated -OR- Normal and respected?
• To have the ability to play every musical instrument -OR- Speak every language?
• To be able to change the past -OR- See the future?
• To be stuck in a meeting -OR- Stuck in traffic?
• To be ten minutes late for everything -OR- An hour early for everything?
• To lose a winning lottery ticket -OR- Your hair?
• To watch all TV in black and white -OR- Listen to all music in AM?
• To have a time machine -OR- A money-making machine?
• To be a corrupt mayor -OR- An honest lawyer?
• To hypnotize with your eyes -OR- Your touch?
• To be stuck on a deserted island with a supermodel -OR- A boat builder?
• To be rich -OR- Good looking?
• To have your dream house in the Arctic -OR- Be homeless living on a beach?
• To date someone who talks too much -OR- One who rarely speaks?
• To have a constant toothache -OR- No teeth at all?

Sign me up for writing the next 500 questions (especially if it comes with free beer, a year on a tropical island, and a fat budget).

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Last month, we highlighted three beers with alcohol contents above 18%. For the most part, these beers created little controversy, despite stuffing a six-pack’s worth of alcohol into a single bottle. Enter Scotland’s BrewDog, a craft brewer that drew the ire of industry watchdogs in the United Kingdom with their Tokyo* oak aged stout. Alcohol Focus Scotland called the 18.2% alc./vol. beer “irresponsible,” and a member of the Scottish Parliament even submitted a motion condemning the brewery. BrewDog responded to these UK critics with Nanny State, a 1.1% alc./vol. “mild imperial ale.” The label has this to say:

At BrewDog we appreciate your inability to know your limits – especially when it comes to alcohol – which is why we’ve created Nanny State.

This idiosyncratic little beer is a gentle smack in the right direction.

Please note: BrewDog recommends that you only drink this beer whilst wearing the necessary personal protective equipment and in a premises that has passed a full health and safety risk assessment for optimum enjoyment.

The name, absurdly low alcohol content and label combine to create a witty riff on alcohol beverage policy. And it may well be a great public relations move for a small brewer — taking a well-publicized swipe at critics with a marketable product, rather than words alone.

Although the fight over Tokyo* in the UK appears to have cooled down, the product faced resistance in the US, but for a different reason altogether. BrewDog has previously explained (on their blog, post no longer accessible) that TTB viewed the brand name as potentially misleading as to origin. And so Tokyo* became Tokio*, but without any fuss over the alcohol content.

No word yet on whether Nanny State will make it to the US, or if Miller and Anheuser-Busch will suit up for the “weakness wars” and go lower, to 0.9% or so.

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This is post number three in a series of three, about Sorelli’s amusing wine labels, showing women in various states of dismay and under-appreciation. Click below for the full label:

• tell me again why do I need a man?
• if you want breakfast in bed
• so much to do
• because I am the mother

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