Friday, October 24, 2014

Misleading label?

While I'm so focused on liquor labels, this came across my computer -- Tito's Vodka is being sued in a class action lawsuit, which claims the label is inaccurate:

This is a class action case brought on behalf of all purchasers of all vodka (“Vodka”) manufactured, distributed, marketed, and/or sold by FIFTH DIMENSION, INC. dba Tito’s Handmade Vodka (hereinafter “TITO’S”). Through a fraudulent, unlawful, deceptive and unfair course of conduct, TITO’S, and DOES 1 through 100 (collectively “Defendants”), manufactured, marketed, and/or sold their “TITO’S HANDMADE” Vodka to the California general public with the false representation that the Vodka was “handmade” when, in actuality, the Vodka is made via a highly-mechanized process that is devoid of human hands. There is simply nothing “handmade” about the Vodka, under any definition of the term,1 because the Vodka is: (1) made from commercially manufactured “neutral grain spirit” (“NGS”) that is trucked and pumped into TITO’s industrial facility; (2) distilled in a large industrial complex with modern, technologically advanced stills; and (3) produced and bottled in extremely large quantities (i.e., it is “mass produced”). - See more at: http://www.bevlaw.com/bevlog/#sthash.gdNOuFi7.dpuf

I am happy to say that every single word on our label is true :-)

This also illustrates one of my theories:  it is very hard -- perhaps impossible -- for a small, artisinal, farm distillery-type brand to scale up.  By definition such a brand has to be small as it is impossible to be handcrafted and also produced on a large scale.

1 comment:

  1. "By definition such a brand has to be small as it is impossible to be handcrafted and also produced on a large scale...."
    Yes, craft distillery should get advantage over big monsters by liberating them of excise tax, allowing to sell their product directly to retailer or to retail themselves without distributor but production limit under this type of license should be limited down to say 1000 bottles per month
    Craft distillery can survive only in this environments, otherwise, 95% off this distilleries can't compete big monsters and are getting bankrupt in their first years

    ReplyDelete