I spent the other day in Bruichladdich’s bottling hall. They are one of the few distilleries that bottle their own whisky, which allows Bruichladdich to be highly innovative in their release selections. It’s economically viable for them to run small runs of a particular bottling, as they can do the label and, if necessary, bottling change overs pretty quickly.
In chatting with the labeling folks, I was made aware of the demands that different countries place on alcohol labels. And no two demands are ever the same. The regulations for each country is different to the point where even a minute labeling change could be necessary, not only from country to country, but in some cases from province to province.
As far as I can tell, based on my work in the political realm on researching interstate and international alcohol laws, the only real reason for these differences is to give bureaucratic agencies something to do and another revenue stream. In the U.S., these antiquated laws mean that consumers pay more for a product than they should, simply because there are unnecessarily regulated steps that are in place to distance the consumer from the distiller, brewer or vintner.
The U.N. is trying to solve unrest in the Middle East, nuclear concerns in Iran and North Korea, and deep recession throughout the world. International powers-that-be can’t even come up with a universal labeling system for alcohol (for example, Americans need to be warned that alcohol could cause health problems, while the rest of the world seems to figure that out without having a label on their bottle). How can we expect them to stop wars when they can’t even figure out stickers?