Mixology Monday: Cherries

June 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Remember the Maine, with Ocho Reposado in place of rye.

Today’s Mixology Monday theme is cherries, a flavor that seems to go wrong more often than it goes right. Says host Andrea at Gin Hound:

Singapore Gin Sling, Blood and Sand, and the Aviation wouldn’t be the same without them… But cherries in cocktails are also horribly abused, few things taste worse than artificial cherry aroma, and the description of how most maraschino cherries are made can make you sick to your stomach. So it’s my pleasure as the host of Mixology Monday… to challenge you to honor the humble cherry. However you choose to do that, is entirely up to you. You could use Maraschino Liqueur, Cherry Heering, Kirchwasser, Belgian Kriek Beer, cherry wine, or any spectacular infusions invented by you in a cocktail. Or make your own maraschino cherries for a spectacular garnish.

A few years ago my go-to cocktail was the Remember the Maine, a classic combining rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, cherry Heering, and absinthe. It fell out of my rotation for a while, then this winter I picked it up again using good reposado tequila in place of the rye. This substitution works. It’s on our current menu as the Anahuac, in keeping with the battleship theme:

2 oz reposado tequila
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
1/4 oz cherry Heering
2 dashes absinthe
cherry, for garnish

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with the cherry.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Cocktails, Food and Drink

North Shore for Negroni Week

June 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This year Negroni Week, the celebration of the classic cocktail hosted every year by Portland restaurant Nostrana, spread out to include bars all over the country featuring variations of the drink. Metrovino took part, and unsurprisingly, I reached for aquavit. The cumin-forward, barrel-aged aquavit from North Shore works great in this cocktail:

1 oz North Shore aquavit
1 oz Campari
1 oz sweet vermouth
orange peel, for garnish

Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with the orange twist.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Cocktails, Oregon

Don’t be quite like Washington

June 6, 2013 By 1 Comment

Today’s Oregonian editorial urges Oregon to make like Washington and privatize liquor:

It’s possible, even probable, that Oregonians will vote on same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization in November 2014, leaving the state one measure short of a following-Washington’s-footsteps trifecta. That spot may — and should — be filled by an initiative privatizing liquor sales. It’s time to drag booze regulation out of the 1930s.

I’m with them on this, but they oversell the case a bit in using Washington as a model. This paragraph in particular seems disingenuous:

Despite the initial price shock, Washingtonians bought more booze than they did the year before. It’s simply far more convenient to buy liquor at Safeway or Costco, as Washingtonians now can, than to make a separate trip to a state liquor store. And consumer choices have increased thanks to the appearance of popular store brands, says Gilliam.

I think it’s fair to say that the appeal of these “popular store brands” lies more in price than in quality. And that’s fine. I’ve said before that we shouldn’t force mainstream consumers to pay higher prices so that booze nerds can buy esoteric spirits. But let’s not pretend there’s no potential trade-off here. The OLCC, to its credit, has become quite good at placing special orders compared to other control states. (Trust me, I used to live in Virginia.) It’s also acted as an incubator for Oregon distillers. This seems at least partly because the agency is not a pure maximizer of profits. Depending on how retail licenses are structured in a successful privatization plan, the state may end up with a less responsive supply side.

The benefit of watching Washington privatize liquor first is that we can learn from its mistakes. So here are two to keep in mind:

Keep taxes reasonable — Washington gave privatization a bad name by packaging it with extremely high taxes, the highest in the nation. As a result, consumers associate privatization with price hikes instead of the lower costs they anticipated.

Allow small retailers — Washington’s initiative generally limits new retail licenses to stores that are at least 10,000 square feet in area. This is a classic “bootleggers and Baptists” dynamic: Temperance-minded voters didn’t want proliferation of liquor licenses, and large grocers didn’t mind restricting competition. This makes it difficult to open boutique stores appealing to consumers that Costco may ignore.

Both of these concerns will be a factor in Oregon’s eventual privatization, which may be broadly popular but will be driven by particular interests. The state will want to retain its revenue. Retailers and distributors will want to shape the law to their benefit. To get this right, voters and legislators will need to keep in mind that privatization is a means to the end of competition, not an end in itself.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Food and Drink, Oregon, Regulation

Defining “craft” distilleries

June 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Eastern Washington Wheat Fields

Following up on last week’s post about Oregon’s new craft distillery law that potentially violates the Commerce Clause, it’s worth mentioning that Washington may not be doing any better. But first, a couple articles that have come up recently about definitions of “craft” distilleries.

At The Atlantic, Wayne Curtis notes that right now anyone can call themselves a craft distiller, regardless of whether there is much craft to what they do:

It’s a little-known fact, but you don’t actually need a still to call yourself a distiller. The vodka makers I visited had adopted a simple and surprisingly common business model: buy a large quantity of potable alcohol from an industrial supplier (one vendor of neutral spirits offers it “in drum, truckload and railcar quantities”), run it through a tall charcoal filter to remove any trace impurities, cut it with water, decant it into bottles, and then slap on a label touting it as a local craft product worthy of its premium price.

At his excellent whiskey blog, Chuck Cowdery examines the so-called “problem” of non-distiller producers (NDPs), brands that simply repackage spirits under a new label with varying degrees of transparency. His suggested solution is a voluntary certification program:

Hence this modest proposal. The industry has several voluntary trade associations: the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. (DISCUS), the Kentucky Distillers’ Association (KDA), the American Distilling Institute (ADI), and the newly formed American Craft Distillers Association (ACDA), to name a few. Several universities, such as Michigan State, have distilling programs. One of those entities, or a new one established for this purpose, could create a certification program. It would establish criteria, and a monitoring and enforcement system, and award certifications to producers who apply and meet the requirements. It would all be voluntary and funded by the participants. Then it is up to the participants to promote and support it, to imbue it with sufficient credibility so that concerned consumers will learn to look for and trust that designation.

I’m glad to see that both articles express some skepticism about using government regulations to address the issue. Washington is one state that has tried, and not surprisingly the state gets it wrong.

Washington law designates a special license for craft distillers. Qualified applicants pay a reduced fee, $100 per year instead of $2000. They’re also allowed to offer on-premise tastings to consumers. But there’s a catch: They cannot produce more than 60,000 gallons of spirits per year, and at least half of the raw materials used in producing their spirits must be grown in Washington. (Details on Washington’s various license types can be downloaded here.)

Like Oregon’s new law, the requirement that craft distillers use locally grown ingredients raises obvious Commerce Clause issues. It’s also an exceedingly narrow definition of craft. It practically* excludes the NDPs and instant vodka brands, which is at least arguably desirable. But it also excludes producers that most people would consider worthy. For makers of gin, aquavit, absinthe, or various liqueurs, the origin of the base spirits is often far less important than the distiller’s skill selecting and incorporating botanicals. And if a distiller wants to specialize in rum, forget about it: The banks of the Puget Sound are not known for their fields of sugar cane. (Washington absinthe distiller Gwydion Stone argues the same case.)

Craft distillers in Washington are making interesting, quality spirits from local ingredients, like Washington wheat whiskey or gins and vodkas distilled from local grains. But I wouldn’t say that they’re more deserving of the craft designation than an Oregon producer making quality gin from neutral grain spirits. How to source one’s base ingredient is a creative decision that should be left to the distiller, not codified into law to promote local agricultural interests.

Fortunately the advantages provided by Washington’s craft distiller license are not overwhelming, allowing distilleries that don’t meet the definition to still go into production. But it demonstrates the perils of letting regulators and legislators define craft instead of leaving it to the rapidly evolving market for spirits.

If the beer market, which has had more time to mature, is any guide in the matter, maintaining a meaningful definition of craft is going to get increasingly difficult anyway. Volume of output can be objectively measured. “Craft” means different things to different people. Beer writer Jeff Alworth offers a different list of brewery classifications that he finds useful, with no place for the c-word: “There’s really no use for the term and I am going on a personal campaign to eliminate it from my own vocabulary.” Legally speaking, at least, that may be the best advice going forward.

*Edit: Added the word “practically” to be more precise. As Gwydion notes, it may be possible to buy NGS or other spirits that comply with the local requirements. I’m not sure how this would be addressed.

[Photo: Field of Washington wheat, by Jimmy Emerson on Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.]

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Food and Drink, Regulation

Craft distilleries and the Commerce Clause

May 31, 2013 By 1 Comment

A new law in Oregon will allow the state’s distilleries to open additional tasting rooms and retail sales centers:

The bill allows distillers to offer tastings and sell their products at their distillery and five other locations. Current law allows distillers to perform tastings and sell their spirits one other location in addition to the distillery.

Distillers still must purchase their liquor from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the same way liquor store owners do now. And distillers must enter into a contract with the OLCC to sell bottles of their craft spirits.

The goal is to help the increasing number of craft distilleries continue to grow, though as it currently stands only two of them (McMenamin’s and Rogue) have enough locations to take advantage of the new opportunities. Spirits produced in Oregon now account for about 12% of the state’s liquor sales. That’s really impressive, and some of the spirits made in Oregon are fantastic. I hope this trend continues.

However this new law might not be the best way to help craft distillers. It may be nice in the short-run, but is it constitutional? I think that it’s vulnerable to legal challenge by out-of-state producers as a violation of the Commerce Clause, following the arguments that allowed wine producers to strike down discriminatory direct shipping laws in Granholm v. Heald. (I have no formal legal training, so take this as a layman’s reading. The case isn’t too complicated.)

Granholm explicitly addressed the balancing of the Twenty-first Amendment, which gives states broad authority to regulate alcohol, and the Commerce Clause, which generally forbids states from discriminating against out-of-state producers.

The Twenty-first Amendment reads in part:

The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

This has been interpreted to allow states great flexibility in deciding how to regulate alcohol, including the power of outright prohibition. The Court’s ruling in Granholm made clear, however, that these regulations must treat in-state and out-of-state producers evenly, not giving undue favor to the former. As Justice Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion:

The mere fact of nonresidence should not foreclose a producer in one State from access to markets in other States. [...] States may not enact laws that burden out-of-state producers or shippers simply to give a competitive advantage to in-state businesses.

The Twenty-first Amendment does not exempt states from this requirement:

The aim of the Twenty-first Amendment was to allow States to maintain an effective and uniform system for controlling liquor by regulating its transportation, importation, and use. The Amendment did not give States the authority to pass nonuniform laws in order to discriminate against out-of-state goods, a privilege they had not enjoyed at any earlier time.

In Granholm, the question at issue was whether states could allow their own wineries to ship directly to consumers while denying the privilege to wineries from other states. The Court ruled that they cannot. States can choose whether to ban or to allow direct shipping of wine, but they must treat in- and out-of-state wineries consistently.

The case doesn’t address liquor directly, but it’s easy to extend to the logic. Oregon’s new law allows in-state distilleries to open up to five retail stores, a privilege denied completely to distilleries from anywhere else. The law’s supporters say explicitly that its purpose is to promote local businesses:

“It takes advantage of Oregon agricultural products, it promotes tourism and it promotes small business development,” said Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, who is one of the bill’s sponsors.

The law clearly discriminates in favor of Oregon distilleries. For this to be permissible under the Commerce Clause, the discrimination must be necessary to achieve some other legitimate purpose. In Granholm, the states argued unsuccessfully that their laws were necessary for the collection of taxes and to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors.

It’s difficult to imagine either of these arguments faring any better for Oregon. All of the spirits sold in Oregon, including those in the new tasting rooms, retail at a set price through the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC). The state has no sales tax. Collection of revenue, then, is not a concern.

As for sales to minors, it would be hard to argue with a straight face that local distilleries are uniquely qualified to sell only to adults.

So if Oregon distilleries can open tasting rooms and retail centers anywhere in the state, why not distilleries from across the river in Washington? Or from Kentucky? Or anywhere else, for that matter? It’s easy to imagine an out-of-state distillery suing for access to Oregon’s market on equal terms,

This hypothetical case may be strengthened by the fact that through its monopoly on liquor distribution, the OLCC can grant de facto preferential treatment to Oregon producers. Though the agency doesn’t explicitly do this, there’s good reason to believe that it has this effect. From a recent article about the state’s craft distillery boom:

OLCC officials stopped short of saying the agency shows a preference for stocking Oregon-made products at its warehouse — but it hasn’t created many obstacles for start-up distilleries.

“We make it easy. They get a listing,” said Brian Flemming, director of retail services for the OLCC.

The makeup of the Court seems favorable to extending the Granholm interpretation. As Garrett Peck notes in his book The Prohibition Hangover, dissent in the case was associated with age, with all of the justices who were alive during Prohibition siding with the states. Dissenters Rehnquist, O’Connor, and Stevens have all since retired. If a new case involving distillers does reach the Court, they may get a sympathetic hearing.

That’s a big “if.” Even if a case is brought, it may never go that far. And lower courts may decide that since Oregon’s law presents a different set of facts, the ruling in Granholm doesn’t apply.

Nonetheless, promoting craft distilleries through laws that discriminate in favor of local producers is a risky strategy that may backfire when and if they are challenged in court. There are other ways to open up the market for craft distillers that would rest on more secure legal footing.

[Photo: Still at Grand Traverse Distillery in Michigan, 2008.]

[Disclosure: I do contract work in the spirits industry, often with brands not based in Oregon.]

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Law, Oregon, Regulation

Liberating Libations

May 31, 2013 By Leave a Comment

The other podcast I recorded in DC is now up, “Liberating Libations” on the American Enterprise Institute’s “Banter” podcast. Dan Rothschild, Brandon Arnold, Stu James, and I discuss three-tier distribution, beer purity, homebrewing, and other drink related topics. Listen here.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Food and Drink, Regulation

Achievement unlocked: One decade of blogging

May 28, 2013 By 1 Comment

I realized late this afternoon that my blog turns ten today. That’s like retirement age in blog years. Blogging isn’t quite as much fun as it was when I first started, back when bloggers would gather for happy hours based solely on sharing a publication format, subject matter inconsequential. Because we were bloggers! And that was reason enough. Much of what I used to post is now better suited to Twitter and Facebook, and the professionalization of the web makes it more sensible to submit longer content to existing publications than post it here. Nonetheless I’m grateful for those of you who do read this blog and continue to find value in posting, even if SEO has become a bigger consideration than trying to build a daily readership.

I could go on, but in adherence this site’s rules for good blogging…

Rule #1: Be meaningful.

Rule #2: If meaning is elusive, be amusing.

Rule #3: If meaning and amusement are both out of reach, be brief.

… I should probably shut up and post a cocktail recipe.

The Plantain Pisco Sour is exactly what it sounds like, a Pisco Sour sweetened with the spiced plantain syrup I like so much. This is an updated version of a drink I made for competition a few years, minus the foam. Use a good pisco like Campo de Encanto, the kind of pisco that actually tastes like it was distilled from grapes, for best results.

2 oz pisco
3/4 oz spiced plantain syrup
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz Dimmi
1 egg white
bitters, for garnish

Shake everything without ice to aerate the egg white, then shake hard again with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with drops of aromatic bitters. Etch them into tiny hearts for that extra special mixologist touch. (I use Novo Fogo Cherribiscus Bitters that my friend Evan Martin made, but any colorful and aromatic bitter will do.)

And if you’re looking for more drinks to try, remember there’s a whole section of the site devoted to cocktails now.

[Photo by Will Ray.]

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Cocktails, Food and Drink, Personal, Site Changes, Writing Tagged With: ,

Cato podcast on FDA tobacco regulation

May 23, 2013 By Leave a Comment

While in DC this week I recorded a couple podcasts. Here’s the first, with the Cato Institute’s Caleb Brown. In it we cover FDA regulation of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and cigars.

One minor correction: We were only discussing these inhalable products, so I misspoke when saying that current FDA regulations only cover cigarettes. The agency regulates smokeless tobacco too.

Update 5/30/13: Or if you prefer video…

Filed Under: Nanny State, Regulation Tagged With: ,

Links for 5/10/13

May 10, 2013 By 2 Comments

Cleared for Departure is one of our most popular cocktails at Metrovino, but I’ve been remiss in dedicating a post to it. The recipe is now up at the cocktail section of the site.

Italy meets Texas with Pecaño, a pecan liqueur that appears to be inspired by the bittersweet liqueurs of Italy. As a native Texas, this sounds very interesting to me. They launched a Kickstarter today to bring it into full scale production.

More than thirty years after federal legalization, homebrewing is now legal in all fifty states thanks to Alabama finally coming on board. Now on to home distillation!

Want to be a street performer in St. Louis? You’ll have to audition for the city first.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Cocktails, Food and Drink, On the Web

Culture of Competition at AEI

May 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I’m excited to head back to Washington, DC this month to be on a a panel discussion hosted by Tim Carney as part of the American Enterprise Institute’s Culture of Competition project. The details:

Free beer: Liberating libations from ‘Bootleggers and Baptists’

For centuries, the manufacture and sale of beer, wine, and spirits has been a highly profitable and highly regulated enterprise. And where profit and regulation meet, cronyism and rent-seeking frequently follow.

From moonshiners buying off politicians during the Prohibition era to liquor stores trying to ban supermarkets from selling beer today, regulation has been used to keep start-up brewers, winemakers, and distillers from manufacturing alcohol; to preserve inefficient distribution systems; and to restrict choices available to consumers. Frequently, this regulation has been used for “noble social goals” — hence the famous public choice example of “Bootleggers and Baptists.”

Can markets and consumers win? Join us for a discussion of the history and future of federal and state alcohol regulation and competition, followed by a reception with beer, wine, and spirits.

The event takes place at 5:00 pm on Tuesday, May 21. Drinks will follow. Check the site for all the necessary information.

And since I know a lot people in the industry read this site, I’d love to get your feedback as well. How do existing regulations help or hinder competition? What laws would you most like to see changed? Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, DC, Food and Drink, Regulation

Tobacco news roundup

April 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

New FDA Center for Tobacco Products director Mitch Zeller tells Bloomberg to expect action from the agency soon and that he seeks to craft a “comprehensive nicotine policy.” What could that mean? Unmentioned in the article are Zeller’s ties to producers of pharmaceutical nicotine replacement products or his interest in reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes to near zero, a proposal he brings up in the most recent issue of Tobacco Control.

My friends the Stogie Guys have a couple recent posts that are worth reading. In the first, they explain how Big Tobacco has become the enemy of small, premium tobacco through its lobbying efforts. In the second, they examine what a new bill requiring online merchants to collect sales taxes may mean for the cigar industry.

Hestia Tobacco, the brand whose struggle to navigate the FDA’s approval process I documented for The Atlantic, is finally in business. Not selling cigarettes, of course, but rather filtered little cigars. Sale of their cigarettes must await greater competence at the agency. If the product interests you, go check them out.

Christine Quinn, a leader in polls to replace Bloomberg as New York City’s next mayor, appears to have embraced Bloomberg’s nannying legacy. She has proposed raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes within the city to 21. As J. D. Tuccille notes at Reason, this would be good news for black market sellers, who already claim more than 60% of the state’s cigarette market.

Filed Under: Nanny State, Regulation Tagged With:

Mixology Monday: East Indies Bloody Mary

April 22, 2013 By 2 Comments

East Indies Bloody Mary

April’s Mixology Monday theme is the deceptively healthy sounding “Drink Your Vegetables.” From Rowen at Fogged in Lounge:

Want to get more vegetables but you’re always eating on the run?… Well then, how about a vegetable cocktail? No, not that nice little glass of red stuff Grandma put at each place setting—we’re talking something with a kick in it. You can definitely start with the little glass of red stuff and expand it to a Red Snapper-style drink like a Bloody Mary. Or how about a cucumber-scented cooler like a Pimm’s Cup, or maybe a cocktail featuring a vegetable-based ingredient like Cardamaro or celery bitters? Maybe you’ve been wondering if you can get more mileage out of that juice extractor before consigning it to the garage sale. However you get them in that glass, be prepared for the most fun with vegetables ever.

A while back I was tasked with coming up with a creative take on the Bloody Mary. In a town with as many brunches and savvy bartenders as Portland, coming up with something unique and tasty was a challenge; here even the Aquavit Bloody Mary can seem routine. After quite a bit of experimentation with different spirits and spices, I eventually settled on one made with Batavia arrack — a funky, assertive spirit distilled from sugar cane and red rice — and accented with a spice paste inspired by Indonesian cuisine. To top it all off, the cocktail is garnished with house made pickles and a spicy grilled prawn.

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for a while, so I’m glad to finally have the opportunity. To make it you’ll need a basic Bloody Mary mix, the spice paste, and Batavia arrack.

For the spice paste:

4 tablespoons sambal oelek
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Combine all ingredients and mix well.

For the East Indies Bloody Mary:

1 1/2 oz Batavia arrack
4 oz Bloody Mary mix
2 teaspoons Indonesian spice paste
cumin salt rim, for garnish
pickles, for garnish
grilled prawn, for garnish

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, and strain (but don’t fine strain) into an ice-filled pint glass rimmed with a mixture of salt and ground cumin. Go crazy with the garnishes. A grilled prawn flavored with turmeric and other spices is a good touch. When we served this we pickled various vegetables such as long beans, green beans, lotus root, daikon, and cucumber in the brine from the Indian-style pickled cauliflower recipe in The Joy of Pickling.

Coming up on my to-do list: Trying this spice paste on grilled meat. In the meantime, drink up.

[Photo courtesy of Lush Angeles.]

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Cocktails, Food and Drink Tagged With: ,

An appreciation of pipe tobacco

April 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Writer Wil S. Hylton has a fantastic appreciation of pipe tobacco published last week in, of all places, The New York Times Magazine. Wil tells the story of coming across an obscure variety called Semois and tracking it to its source in Belgium, adding one more item to the long list of reasons I need to visit the country. Unlike so many food and drink writers, Wil gets that tobacco deserves a spot at the culinary table. I love this passage:

I was struck by how unfamiliar the scene would have been to my American friends who have, in a fashion typical of our generation, embraced the current culinary boom with maniacal fervor, boiling obscure reductions to drip onto bits of fruit exploded by bicycle pumps in homage to Ferran Adrià, and yet, despite this globe-trotting gustatory zeal, haven’t the slightest comprehension of the exquisite flavor that haunts tobacco. If the modern mythos of the kitchen had arrived a decade earlier, before the vilification of tobacco was complete, the pipe might occupy a place on the palate alongside argan oil and hijiki and yuzu. Somewhere in the multiverse, there is an alternate New York City where the Union Square farmers’ market brims not just with heirloom melons and leeks and squash but also with local tobaccos as vibrant as the Cherokee purple tomato. There is a literature still waiting to be written on fine tobacco; tobacco awaits its Julia Child — who, it should be said, loved to smoke, as so many other chefs have and do. It is axiomatic these days that smoking ruins the palate, but this would come as news to Thomas Keller, Anthony Bourdain and all the other celebrated chefs who enjoy a good smoke.

Read the whole thing.

Filed Under: Food and Drink

Tobacco tax skepticism

April 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

My latest article for The Atlantic provides four reasons to oppose the new tobacco taxes proposed in the White House budget.

Filed Under: Economics, Nanny State, Politics, Regulation, Writing Tagged With: ,

DC wants to ban e-cigs in bars

April 12, 2013 By 2 Comments

People in DC bars are “vaping,” or using electronic cigarettes, indoors. A couple members of the DC city council — Yvette M. Alexander and David Grosso — have introduced a bill to include e-cigarettes in the city’s smoking ban:

In an interview, Alexander said e-cigarettes are being “used to usurp the smoking ban.”

“It is smoking, is an inhalant and it’s similar to smoking,” said Alexander, chairwoman of the Health Committee. “We don’t know what the ill effects of this are, and it’s still a bother to some people.”

“Similar to smoking” and “a bother.” Time was city officials at least made a show of finding evidence of harm before imposing bans. E-cigarettes may be annoying to other patrons, but there’s no evidence or reason to believe that secondhand vapor (is that a thing now?) is something to fear. And to point out the obvious, bar and restaurant owners are perfectly free to set their own policies if guests prefer to avoid it.

Filed Under: DC, Nanny State, Smoking Bans

What I’ve been drinking

April 9, 2013 By 1 Comment

Unexpected travel has made me a bit delayed reviewing spirits. Here are some recent arrivals to the home bar:

South Sea Rum — This is an “agricole” style rum distilled in Australia from first-pressed sugar cane. It goes through pot and column stills before resting for two years in old and new American oak. How to review it? Taken as an agricole rum, it doesn’t have nearly as much hogo, or distinctive funk, as counterparts from, say, Martinique. It is a very tasty rum though, with nice vanilla notes from the barrel and a long finish. I’ve gone through about half a bottle already, mostly drinking it neat. At $30-35 the price is right too.

Zumwohl Kirsch — It’s a dry, German style schnapps. It’s from New Zealand. And, oh yeah, it’s 132 proof. Sipping this neat is not for everyone, but if you try it you will taste cherries along with dark chocolate and a bit of a medicinal note. A more user friendly way to pour it is in a Straits Sling, where it fits perfectly. It’s not available in the US, so bug your Kiwi friends to send you a bottle.

Elixer Combier — According to the Combier website, this is a revival of one of their 19th century recipes, an herbal liqueur that includes “aloe, nutmeg, myrrh, cardamom, cinnamon and saffron” among its ingredients. At 76 proof it has enough heat to be enjoyed on its own without being too sweet. It’s very complex and I’m sure it could do great things in the right cocktail. But which cocktail? I haven’t figured that out yet, but I will be sure to experiment.

Concannon Irish Whiskey — For a spirits writer, March is the month when samples of Irish whiskey arrive. One year Lance Mayhew and I tasted nearly thirty versions of the spirit, a feat of endurance from which I’m still recovering. This year I tried just one new bottling, Concannon. Distilled by Cooley, it spends time in a mix of bourbon barrels and wine barrels from the Concannon Winery in Livermore, California. I picked up a slightly fruity note when tasting, which it turns out is also what the press release says the wine barrel finish provides. Like most Irish whiskeys it’s light bodied and easy drinking.

Filed Under: Alcoholic Beverages, Food and Drink

New taxes on pipes and cigars?

April 8, 2013 By 4 Comments

According to Bloomberg, President Obama will be proposing new tobacco taxes to fund pre-kindergarten programs:

Obama’s 2014 budget proposal, to be released April 10, would finance a pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-olds with higher taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. The president outlined the program in his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. He’s seeking to increase spending in areas such as education while Republican lawmakers are pushing for additional budget cuts as a way to reduce the federal deficit.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to elaborate on the proposed tobacco-tax increase. “Wait for specifics,” he told reporters at a briefing yesterday.

Never mind for now that cigarette smokers already suffered a more than doubling of the federal tax in Obama’s first year in office. The “other tobacco products” part of this proposal is reason to worry for those who enjoy pipes and cigars.

The 2009 tobacco tax increases to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program created some significant disparities among similar products. Pipe tobacco was taxed at a far lower rate than roll-your-own (RYO). Large cigars sometimes get much more favorable treatment than small cigars. As a result, producers and consumers shifted to pipe tobacco instead of RYO and added just enough weight to small cigars to qualify as large. The distorting effects of these taxes were immediate and striking:

These changes are almost entirely a matter of legal classification. Actual consumption patterns haven’t changed in the way the chart suggests. Neither pipes nor premium cigars have enjoyed an explosion of new consumers as a result of these taxes.

Nonetheless, the government wants to fix this disparity. A report from the General Accounting Office, the source of the chart above (PDF), estimates that in the first two years of new taxes these substitution effects may have cost the treasury up to $1.1 billion.

One way to fix the disparity would be to lower taxes on RYO and small cigars, but that’s not going to happen. So don’t be at all surprised if the proposal from the Obama Administration includes tax hikes on pipe tobacco and large cigars, imposing substantial new costs on consumers and retailers.

For more, read Michael Siegel’s take on the tax proposal. And for a longer explanation of how smoking bans, higher taxes, and FDA regulation threaten the premium cigar industry, see my December article in The Atlantic.

Update 4/10/13: Via International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers on Facebook, this is apparently the language in the budget proposal:

Increase tobacco taxes and index for inflation

Under current law, cigarettes are taxed at a rate of $50.33 per 1,000 cigarettes. This is equivalent to just under $1.01 per pack, or approximately $22.88 per pound of tobacco. Taxes on other tobacco products range from $0.5033 per pound for chewing tobacco to $24.78 per pound of roll your-own tobacco.

The Administration proposes to increase the tax on cigarettes to $97.65 per 1,000 cigarettes, or about $1.95 per pack, increase all other tobacco taxes by about the same proportion, and index the taxes for inflation after 2014. The Administration also proposes to clarify that roll-your-own tobacco includes any processed tobacco that is removed for delivery to anyone other than a manufacturer of tobacco products or exporter. The rate increases would be effective for articles held for sale or removed after December 31, 2013.

As predicted, all loose tobacco would be treated equally, resulting in a huge tax increase for pipe smokers. Details on cigars are lacking, but it looks they would be hit too.

Filed Under: Economics, Nanny State, Regulation Tagged With: ,
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