Getting In The Spirit
December 1, 1995
Getting In The Spirit By: Scott Hegenbart Even today's health-conscious consumers have a strong demand for unique alcoholic beverages. Wine coolers, prepared cocktails, and so on, also play into consumer demands for convenience. But formulating such products presents many challenges, such as the specification of alcohol-containing ingredients (particularly navigating the legal hassles), interactions between the ingredients, and shelf life issues. Issues of alcoholBefore creating an alcohol-containing beverage, a product designer must address many issues that go beyond formulation. "You must always think about who is going to consume the product because you don't want something that appears to be targeted to those under legal drinking age," says David Dafoe, president, Pro-Liquitech, Louisville, KY This is a perpetual challenge." Obviously, no company would want to develop something that's bubble gum-flavored or has the kind of concord grape flavor that appeals to children. Still, fruit-flavored products are popular and offer a great deal of variety. The challenge is to formulate a fruit-flavored product with adults-only appeal. Another issue is the alcohol tax. No other product category has a major ingredient with tax rate influencing its selection. When developing a wine cooler, for example, one could formulate a malt-based cooler that tastes just as good, but is taxed at a lower rate. Years ago, certain prepared cocktails were introduced with spirits. Then they were reformulated with a wine base because it had a cheaper tax rate. Now most cooler-type products are malt-based because the taxes are so much lower than if they were made with wine. "That is the only reason those products changed," says Dafoe. "Malt isn't a better or cheaper ingredient. In fact, it's cheaper by the gallon to buy spirits than wine, but the taxes are four times as high on the same product." In addition to taxes, federal and state governments exert even more influence on the development of alcohol-containing products. Governments control who will buy it, where consumers may buy it, and where they may consume it. Even before a product gets to consumers, the federal government controls the formula, which must be subjected to an approval process. After approval of the formula, the government next must approve the label. "It's a very sweeping process," says Dafoe. "By mission, the government is only supposed to assure that what's on the label is what's in the formula. In fact, they make moral judgments based on the product name and who they think may buy it." Every alcoholic beverage also has some standard of identity. These can range from one or two sentences to many paragraphs. In fact, even the alcohol used as an ingredient must meet a standard of identity. If the standards of identity are violated, the formula will be rejected when submitted for approval. Then the designer must not only reformulate the product, but wait another four to six weeks for another approval. Such a situation can wreak havoc on a developmental timetable. |