OPINION:
IT'S TIME FOR APPELLATION WRITTEN BY HARRY HALLER
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rogress does not always mean moving forward. Significant benefits arise from moments of critical self-analysis, and, when it comes to the U.S. spirits industry, such introspection is long overdue. It is time for distillers large and small to turn significant energies towards refining descriptions and standardizing definitions. Why? Because there has been a robust growth of consumer interest in liquor and not as some passing fancy. This turn of attention towards spirits is genuine. In the process, consumers are rapidly becoming more educated and their choices more refined. It should not be left up to them to figure out the pedigree of a product. When it comes to self-identity, the U.S. spirits industry often paints by the numbers. They define a distillery solely by ownership and production size. They define product by what the law tells them they have to. That's it. It took U.S. wine-makers and merchants more than forty years after the French to realize the extent to which an appellation d'origine contrôlée would enrich global perception of American wines, and kudos to them. In 1980 they started the AVA, the U.S. version of the appellation categorization. The closest thing to anything of qualitative descriptive value with U.S.distilleries is happening at the state level. The farm distiller, artisan distiller, and craft distiller licenses brand a business as “different” and “folksy,” but there is a problem. Each state has its own definition. New York requires the spirit be made “primarily from farm and food products.” In Connecticut, the distillers themselves must grow no less than twenty-five percent of the fruit or crop used. In Massachusetts, it's about zoning and land-size. All of which adds up to a massive pile of nothing; at least when it comes to practical real-world applications like helping the consumer refine their choices.
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Adding to this mess is the popular habit of calling said regulations “farm-to-flask laws.” Something they absolutely are and yet catchy enough to encourage top publications — from Vogue to Conde Nast Traveler to Esquire to the New York Times — to extol them as such. A shameful misdirection, especially coming from an industry primed for some serious public flogging over the loosey-goosy labeling practices too many distilleries have used for too long. So what should be done? Firstly, manufacturers need to be reclassified. A distillery should be a facility that takes a feedstock, ferments it, then distills it. Anyone buying neutral grain spirit or anything which allows them to skip the fermenting process should be called a refinery. One exception: The title of Distillery-Type would be allowed for places that start with some sort of unfiltered ferment having an ABV of 15% or less. All three have the option to be rated based on how sustainable they are as a production facility. Similar to LEED certification, the EPA's Energy Star Program, and Green Globes, this is an assessment of the distillery as a place of operations and has nothing to do with the product. All products will be grouped by feedstock and production methodology. Please note — the following is an overview. There are a number of subcategories that definitely ought to be included, especially for spirits that are aged. The highest grade goes to spirit made by a facility which grows all its own feedstock, ferments, distills, and bottles on-site. Second goes to those made using local feedstock, followed by those made
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