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Category archives for “Distilled Spirits”

What Can I Do With the Type 85 ABC License?

April 20th, 2012

We’ve been getting lots of inquiries about the privileges and limitations of the new limited off-sale license offered by the ABC. Though we’ve already commented on the basics of the permit here, we’re following up with answers to the clarification questions we’ve been getting:

Where can I find the privileges for the new off-sale wine license?

Read the ABC Advisory and the enabling statute CAL. BUS. & PROF. CODE §23393.5.

Can I sell tequila and beer with the Type 85?

No, the privilege is limited to wine.

Can I get the Type 85 license if I have an upper-tier California license?

No. The Type 85 is a retail-tier license, and there are no special exceptions permitting it to be held with an upper-tier license. On the flip side, you can get it if you are an employee of an on-sale retailer. This is a key distinction between the Type 85 and the Type 17/20 combination that remains popular in California.

Can I deliver product stored out-of-state directly to consumers in California with the Type 85?

No. You must have possession and title to the wine in California. It must be delivered to the consumer from your licensed premises in California or the premises of a licensed public warehouse (Type 14 License).

Can I deliver wine to consumers outside of California with the Type 85?

Yes, but only to about 13 states. 2/3 of those states require additional licensing. You can’t reach New York, Texas, Illinois or Florida.

Do I have to have a location to obtain the Type 85?

Yes. You have to choose an address where the license will be active and your records will be kept. It may not be open to the public. You will have to post notice at the premises and mail notice to nearby neighbors.

Who can I buy wine from with the Type 85?

Licensed California wholesalers and wineries. Not retailers.

How do I apply for the Type 85?

If you are interested in obtaining the license, you need to fill out the forms for an original retail license (e.g. ABC 211-SIG, 217, 208-A/B, 253, 257, 255, 247, 251, 140, entity forms). You can obtain them from the ABC website, or can hire an attorney or licensing specialist to complete them and assist you with the process. The filing fee is $342 ($100 application fee plus $242 annual fee).

TTB Proposed Revisions to Distilled Spirit Plants Reports and Regulations

January 23rd, 2012

Currently, distilled spirits plants (DSPs) are required to complete and file operational report forms, which can number up to seven per month. The TTB has proposed eliminating the current forms and replacing them with two new report forms (TTB F 5110.77 and TTB F 5110.78) in order to streamline the reporting process and reduce costs. According to the TTB’s research, DSPs currently submit an average of 28.4 operational reports per year. The TTB notes that certain data within the required reports is not analyzed or used. Moreover, the increased use of alcohol as a fuel and the growth in artisanal distillers has resulted in many new DSPs and the corresponding burden on TTB to process the paperwork from these DSP has grown tremendously. If the proposal is approved, one report would be used for operations involving spirits for beverage use, while the other would handle reporting on industrial use spirits. Additionally, DSPs that submit quarterly tax returns could switch to quarterly operational reporting, as opposed to the current monthly reporting requirement. The comment period for this proposed revision runs through February 3, 2012, which is right around the corner. The full text of the proposal can be found here.

New Social Media Marketing Guidelines for Alcohol

September 22nd, 2011

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the self-regulatory group for the U.S. distilled spirits industry, just released new guidelines for advertising distilled spirits online. The guidelines were drafted in cooperation with the European Forum for Responsible Drinking, which is the European counterpart to DISCUS.

The full guidelines are available here, and include lots of common sense strategies for responsible online marketing, e.g. identify marketing as such, provide and honor a privacy policy for user data, age gate, market only to adults, and include social responsibility statements. The guidelines also get specific, instructing advertisers to only place ads in media where 71.6% of the audience is the legal drinking age. Recent Nielsen data shows Facebook at 82% 21+, Twitter at 87% 21+ and YouTube at 81% 21+.

Digital marketing communications that are intended to be forwarded by users, such as with a share, download or email “button click”, should include instructions to individuals downloading the content that they should not forward these materials to individuals below the legal purchase age. On a related note, if users provide content on the advertiser’s site or a site controlled by the advertiser, the advertiser should be monitoring and moderating the content every day, or at a minimum once every five business days, to remove inappropriate content.

Spirits Tastings Approved In Tennessee

June 27th, 2011

Earlier this month, Tennessee became the 35th state to allow spirits tastings, with the passage of Senate Bill 1224, which will permit restaurants, bars, and liquor stores to offer limited alcohol sampling. The bill, which was signed into law on June 10thand is codified at Tennessee Code Annotated Section 57-3-404(h)(2), will allow spirits retailers to conduct tastings for “sales, education, and promotional purposes.” Similar to tasting laws in most other states, spirits wholesalers may not take part in the events, and are specifically precluded from directly or indirectly providing any “products, funding, labor, support or reimbursements to a retailer.” The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission will be establishing rules specifying how tastings must be conducted.

Tennessee is among a growing list of states that have authorized limited tastings since 2009, joining California, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

Have Wine, Will Travel

February 25th, 2011

It is called everything from the bombastic “corkage” to the everyperson “BYOB,” but it means the same across all fifty states and beyond: bringing ones own bottle of alcohol to a restaurant for consumption with ones meal. Not every state allows the practice, but Virginia is on the brink of joining the list of states where brown-bagging is permissible. On February 8^th, the Virginia Senate passed SB 1292 (27-Y, 13-N) and the bill passed the House on February 22^nd (78-Y, 18-N), leaving only Governor Robert McDonnell’s signature to make it official. The bill was introduced by Republican state Senator Jeffrey McWaters, who argued passage of SB 1292 would help boost Virginia’s restaurant and wine industries. SB 1292 will add Section 16 to § 4.1-201(A) of the Code of Virginia, thereby allowing licensed restaurants to permit customers to consume legally acquired wine on a restaurant premises and allowing the restaurant to charge a corkage fee if desired.

Each state that allows BYOB has its own unique set of regulations. Virginia’s neighbor to the South, North Carolina, has a “brown-bagging” permit, which allows customers in permitted establishments to bring and consume on the premises “up to eight liters of fortified wine or spirituous liquor, or eight liters of the two combined.” Restaurants, hotels and community theaters are only allowed such permits if they are located in a county where the sale of mixed beverages has not been approved. Eight liters of fortified wine, which in North Carolina is defined as 16-24% alcohol by volume, or distilled spirits, may seem like an exorbitant amount of alcohol. However, unlike Virginia’s SB 1292, North Carolina’s law is not about enjoying a glass of ones own wine with dinner, but rather about consuming a gin and tonic at ones local haunt when such establishment is not allowed by law to sell gin. Attending “liquor locker” provisions in North Carolina allow patrons to store their brown-bagged alcohol in individual lockers at licensed facilities, so that they can drain their provisions over time. Traditional bottle opening fees do not apply in such situations, rather the restaurant makes money selling the mixer used by the patron, commonly referred to as a “set-up.”

The North Carolina arrangement would be defined as an illegal “bottle club” in California. California only allows people to bring their own alcohol to a licensed premises, and one can only bring alcohol that could have been sold by the licensee at the establishment. So if a restaurant only sells beer and wine, one cannot bring in vodka. Also, in California any unfinished portion of the BYOB must be left at the restaurant, so if you bring a bottle of expensive wine to a restaurant, bring enough friends to drink it all!

As we head into the weekend, we’ll leave you to ponder these burning questions: Is it counterintuitive for California to forbid people from bringing wine to restaurants that do not serve it, but permit patrons to bring wine to restaurants with the exact same bottle available for sale on their wine list? Also, who pays more in BYOB alcohol costs—North Carolina patrons bringing in eight liters of distilled spirits or New York patrons (blind item) dining at a well known restaurant with a $90 corkage fee?

Fanciful Names and the TTB

February 23rd, 2011

We get lots of questions on the topic of “fanciful names” in the context of certificate of label approvals (COLAs) through the Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau (TTB). The TTB recently posted a helpful clarification, which we wanted to pass along:

Fanciful Name. Have you ever wondered what information should be entered into the “fanciful name” field on the COLA application? A fanciful name is a term used in addition to the brand name for the purposes of further identifying a product. A fanciful name is mandatory for any malt beverage product that is not known to the trade under a particular designation (27 CFR 7.24(a)) or distilled spirits products that do not meet the standards of identity or does not conform to trade and consumer understanding (27 CFR 5.34(a)). The use of a fanciful name on a flavored wine product or any wine product that meets a standard of identity is not required. Please note that if a fanciful name is used on a flavored wine product, it must appear in direct conjunction with a truthful and adequate statement of composition. (27 CFR 4.34(a))

In other words, if your distilled spirits or beer product does not fall within one of the specifically defined classifications, e.g., whiskey, gin, rum, tequila, beer, lager, ale, porter, stout, etc., then it must be labeled with a “truthful and adequate statement of composition” and a fanciful name in addition to the brand name. This generally occurs when a product starts as a distilled spirit or malt beverage product, but then additional flavorings or ingredients are added and those additional items are not permitted within the standard defined classifications. In the case of wine, the fanciful name is optional. Brand names and fanciful names cannot contain the name of a class or type of alcohol, so “vodka” or “whiskey” cannot serve as a fanciful name.

When a fanciful name is mandatory, it is important to plan ahead when creating a new product name and label. We have seen products identified by a single brand name that could not obtain a label approval because they were required to also have a fanciful name. Applicants in that situation are required to add a new name to be used as a fanciful name and revise their labels so that it is included. An example of a properly identified distilled spirits product is “ABC Brand, Peachy Passion, neutral spirits with added fruit juice and natural flavorings.” It uses a brand name, a fanciful name, and a statement of composition, as required under the labeling regulations. For most products, fanciful names are not required but it’s important to consider how TTB will classify your product before you create your labels and brand identity.

Vertical Integration in California (“Tied-House” Laws)

February 17th, 2011

The general rule with alcoholic beverage licensing is that you cannot be involved in more than one “tier” of the industry, meaning that suppliers and importers can’t be wholesalers, wholesalers can’t be retailers, retailers can’t be suppliers, and vice versa. The objective, which came about following the repeal of prohibition, was to promote the organized and responsible distribution of alcohol. It was thought that by keeping the three tiers separate, suppliers would not exert undue influence over retailers, consumers would not be encouraged to over consume, and the societal ills that led to prohibition in the first place would not be repeated. In the 75+ years since the creation of the three-tier system, dozens of exceptions have found their way into the California ABC Act. The tiers are no longer entirely separate and some licensees are permitted to hold licenses in other tiers. For example:

12/18 (Distilled Spirits Importer)/(Distilled Spirits Wholesaler)

17/20 (Wine and Beer Wholesaler)/(Wine and Beer Retailer)

9/17/20 (Wine and Beer Importer)/ (Wine and Beer Wholesaler)/(Wine and Beer Retailer)

There are restrictions on operating under each of these combinations, but the ability to hold them in combination remains a privilege available in California that is not available in many other states. The “tied-house” rules have implications that extend well beyond the licensing structure. If you are interested in learning more about tied-house issues, feel free to contact any of the attorneys here at Strike & Techel.

Alcoholic Whipped Cream: More Than Just a Dessert Topping

December 14th, 2010

This holiday season, thousands of households will be checking “whipped cream” off their shopping lists. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB, wants to make sure those households are putting the right product in their cart come shopping time. A handful of whipped cream products made with alcohol have popped up over the last year. The products are typically made with grain alcohol and look like traditional whipping cream. But they pack an alcoholic punch of around 16% alcohol per volume, or a little over 30 proof. Such items are not considered food products, but rather alcoholic beverages. As one manufacturer stated in the FAQ section of its website, they’ve never had the product tested for caloric content as it is “not a food product and is not subject to FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] labeling requirements; it is an alcoholic beverage.”

The fact that the product is an alcoholic beverage as opposed to a food product means it is regulated by the TTB. For more information on the TTB’s relationship with the FDA, refer back to our post on caffeinated alcoholic beverages. As the TTB reminded producers last week, all alcoholic beverage products must abide by federal labeling requirements that prohibit consumer deception. Product labels for distilled spirits are required to have a statement of the class, type and alcoholic content, along with the government warning required by 27 U.S.C. 215, among other things. Additionally, such manufacturers must comply with Federal Alcohol Administration Act, or FAA, advertising laws and the various relevant state regulatory laws. If you are of the legal drinking age and decide to try one of these alcoholic whipped cream products this holiday season, just remember, as always, to imbibe in moderation.

Update on New Sampling Rules at Retail Stores in California

December 7th, 2010

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the new permit available to California off-premise consumption retailers that will allow suppliers to come to their premises and conduct instructional consumer tastings. The ABC just released an industry advisory with additional helpful information. The industry advisory is available here.

Alcoholic Energy Drinks are Out, What’s Next?

December 6th, 2010

At this point, we’ve all recovered from the landslide ban on alcoholic energy drinks that crossed the U.S. in November. We covered the opening act, here, when Michigan, quickly followed by Washington, banned the sale of alcoholic energy drinks. New York then reached an agreement with certain suppliers and distributors that halted caffeinated malt beverage sales in that state (review our coverage here). After that, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warning letters to four caffeinated alcoholic beverage companies. The letters warned those producers that caffeine added to their malt alcohol beverage products constitutes an “unsafe food additive.”

Substances added to food products, which includes beverages, are considered food additives and are subject to review and approval by the FDA, unless the substance is specifically excluded from the definition of “food additive,” has been sanctioned by the FDA, or is recognized by qualified experts as adequately safe when used as intended. This third category is referred to as Generally Recognized as Safe or GRAS.

As many know, the FDA isn’t the usual stop for federal regulation of alcoholic beverages, but rather the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) which operates under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act). In this instance, the FDA’s statements meant that the beverages in question were considered adulterated under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). The TTB takes the position that adulterated beverages, even if their formulas and labels have been approved by the TTB, are mislabeled under the FAA Act. This means that shipping and selling such beverages violates the FAA Act, which can result in license revocations and misdemeanor penalties. As the TTB stated, “…each producer and importer of alcohol beverages is responsible for ensuring that the ingredients in its products comply with the laws and regulations that FDA administers. TTB’s approval of a label or formula does not imply or otherwise constitute a determination that the product complies with the FFDCA, including a determination as to whether the product is adulterated because it contains an unapproved food additive.”

Producers of alcoholic energy drinks likely thought their products fell under the GRAS status. The FDA’s announcement ended that assumption. The question is, what other assumptions might it have ended? Alcoholic beverage producers have been using caffeine in their products for years, the most popular being coffee. In the FDA’s Questions and Answers section about the warning letters, it states that the letters are not directed at “alcoholic beverages that only contain caffeine as a natural constituent of one or more of their ingredients, such as a coffee flavoring.” However, in that same section the FDA also stated that, “Other alcoholic beverages containing added caffeine may be subject to agency action in the future if the available scientific data and information indicate that the use of caffeine in those products is not GRAS. A manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that its products, including the ingredients of its products, are safe for their intended use and are otherwise in compliance with the law.” Further, the TTB stated that if requested by the FDA, it would share “formulas for beers containing added caffeine that are approved under 27 CFR Part 25 [TTB regulations].” In the upcoming months, and perhaps years, it will be interesting to see how the GRAS standard is applied to other alcoholic beverages containing some form of caffeine.

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Category archives for “Distilled Spirits”