Using Spirits in Wine USA

[Jeffrey Means]

Hey folks!

I have an "off the wall" question for the commercial cider makers in the group. This may have been covered before, but I haven't been able to find anything on here, or on TTB. Please let me know if this kind of question should belong somewhere else. I want to be a good Cider Workshop Citizen :)

My cidery is working on some formulations for this spring release, and one of the formulations my cider maker wants to submit includes adding a non-wine spirit to finished bulk cider... My gut response is that this is not something you are allowed to do in the US, but I couldn't find anything specifically saying that.

Has anyone experimented with this? Will the TTB slap my wrist if I jump into this?

For the record, I have read Subpart K.... I just couldn't find confirmation that you can't do something like this. Any and all thoughts are appreciated!

Jeff

[CiderSupply.com]

Sat through the ttb presentation at Cidercon this year and from what i recall, one can do it but you can't call it cider when you're done. It's going to fall under your formulation submission description has other than cider There's all kinds of things one can add, just as long as you disclose it in your description on the label. ttb avoids listing all of it, but depending what you blend into it like spirits it will impact the ttb tax scenario by taking it out of the cider group. As you probably already know it and has to be called something like cider blended with spirits, or cider flavored with spirits and so on.

May want to submit the formula first with all your wording before you do any blending like that.

Best regards
Chris Rylands