These Flavoured Wines Are Disguised As Vodka, Whisky, Tequila, And Gin

The Sazerac Company has released a line of “fortified wine beverages” that look like assorted liquors, without the flavour or… the liquor of those real spirits. The labels on each of those bottles imitate the iconography and typefaces of more familiar brands of booze, which is why they’re causing double-takes in US states where hard liquor is only sold in ABC stores.

WTVR explains that, despite the products’ sort of devious packaging, they don’t contain any vodka, bourbon, tequila, or gin. Each one is 21 percent ABV (42 proof), which is the state’s maximum for wine products. That means that this stuff can be sold in supermarkets and convenience stores, wedged between bottles of Cupcake Chardonnay and Johnny Bootlegger’s Sing Sing Sour Grape. “Everybody who comes over here is surprised. ‘Oh, you guys start selling liquor?’ I say, well, this is not liquor, it’s wine,” Trolley Market owner Shashi Zota told the station. “We’re not so expert on wine, so the distributor brought it over here.”

 

And just like its ABV percentage, it seems like Sazerac’s packaging is toeing the line of what is and isn’t acceptable. Virginia law says that companies can’t intentionally mislead customers about what they’re drinking, which is why they all contain the words “grape wine with natural flavor and color” on their labels as well. But those words are under, say, a Russian-inspired eagle, or a drawing of an agave plant, or the very gin-centric words “London Style Extra Dry.”


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