Firestone Walker Black Friday Release: Tequila Sunrise

I'm in. No questions asked.

 

Soon to be on the shelves at every Total Wine in the country for the next two years.

 

How does a name and label like this get approved by the TTB? The name is just two words - the first one is a spirit and the full name is a cocktail. You have to search to find “ale” in small font. I would expect something like this to be an issue with the TTB for reasons that go beyond the fact that the product can’t contain tequila.

@jesskidden , am I way off?

 

Things sure are looser over at the TTB than the used to be, at least that seems to be the case. Maybe they're overworked and, with the FET reduced, probably the budget's been slashed? It used to be fashionable to blame TTB's "Kent 'Battle' Martin" (now retired) for a lot of the rejections since he did all the approvals, but now they're done by a number of different people and, after all, the regulations are pretty vague ("tends to create"?) and leave a lot up to the individual agent - in this case, according to the COLA, it's
"T. McNeill". *

* Maybe "Tracy McNeill" - but no email contact info (there's some older TTB info with a phone number on their site...). It would be interesting to get a comment from a TTB official on a question like this but, as was the case with ol' "Battle" they weren't very responsive to questions from the press or public. Or maybe Tracy's just an Eagles fan (the band, not the football team).

 

That's what I was thinking. The Brewers Association seems to have made an impact too. Here's a PDF from a 2015 TTB ruling (probably old news to you):
https://www.ttb.gov/images/pdfs/rulings/ttb-ruling-2015-1-malt-beverage-formulas.pdf

Some quotes:

The TTB is fine with a beer label stating "bourbon barrel aged" and not fine with "bourbon beer," and the Firestone Walker beer is compliant in this regard. What I'm wondering about is the actual name of the beer. There's a difference between stating "bourbon barrel aged" on a label and naming a beer "Whiskey Sour" (which is a thing) and having that be the dominant font on the label. (of course, that exists too: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43314/227788/ ) I figured "Tequila Sunrise" would be taking things to another level in the eyes of the government.

 

Yeah, just a quick search and I find half a dozen posts of mine that link to it just on the first page It was a big change for the TTB and the industry - and, I'd guess, beside helping the brewers it also saves the TTB lots of time and money, probably all the more important given that the number of breweries has increased dramatically since the department was created in 2003.

Yeah, given the pdf of Labeling Examples for Ruling 2015-1 (Attachment 2) it does seem that those two names aren't any less "misleading" that the "Misleading designation" ones on page 4 - "Bourbon Beer" and "Chardonnay Ale". I'm surprised at it (but, then, I'm still surprised a brewery would WANT to do it ). Damn, I remember the conflicts with the old BATF over using the terms "barley wine" and "winter warmer" on beer labels.

But, I kinda see it as the TTB recognizing the beer market has changed and they're going by that "misleading impression" clause - what might have been seen as misleading 50 or even 20 years ago today just isn't and names like "Whiskey Sour" and "Tequila Sunrise" on the labels of what are obviously beer bottles found in the "beer section" are seen as descriptive of flavors and not necessarily either the actual product or its ingredients?

 

Wicked Weed did a cocktail based beer with a collaboration with another Asheville brewer, sorry cant remember, but if was an Old Fashioned style beer and it was very good too, at that time only available on tap.

 

So Black Friday is a cocktail inspired beer release at Firestone? Last year it was old man Hattan right? Was there another one?

 

I would do a single but I am not a huge fan of this mix. But if its tasty I can always change my mind lol