Fireball whisky is nasty kids stuff to get younger drinkers to think they like whisky!
Malt-based beverages made to taste like spirits (Smirnoff coolers and crap like that) are cheaper to make because they are classed for tax purposes with beers and other fermented beverages, and the tax rate is lower than for distilled spirits drinks. That said, I wonder what the alcohol by volume is on the malt minis— it couldn’t be as strong as real whisky. Fireball Whisky says 33% ABV on the label, which is higher than possible with fermented beverages, as that much alcohol would kill the yeast.
2 Likes
I was curious, too. According to the NYT article I found, about half as strong:
The Sazerac Company said on its website that the malt-based Fireball Cinnamon was 33 proof and that the Fireball Cinnamon Whisky was 66 proof.
Doesn’t seem so “cheap” when you realize people are paying a dollar for, essentially, a swallow of cinnamon and whiskey flavored MD 20/20.
5 Likes
Wait, you mean fireball has actual whiskey in it? It sure as hell doesn’t taste like it.
2 Likes
I mean, I’m honestly a little confused. Did people think that gas station / conveience store fireball was a distilled spirit? People actually thought thousands of gas stations, convience stores, grocery stores etc were just all simultaneously saying “fuck you” to liquor laws?
2 Likes
If it contains no distilled spirits, it shouldn’t even have a proof listed on it. The Fireball whisky bottle has ABV and proof on the front label, I’d expect the mini to just have ABV, but I could be wrong.
1 Like
It does just have ABV on it.
1 Like
They’re legally not distilled spirits so they can legally sell them at places only licensed for sale of malt beverages. Which many places in the usa make a distinction between the two.
Its on purpose, its not fraud. Are they going to sue beer for not being whiskey either?
Should the label be a bit different? Maybe, but these bottom feeders would sue no matter how obvious it was.
Im guessing it will get settled so the lawyers make bank, lead plaintiff gets a few k and the label changes slightly.
2 Likes
Proof is just a measure of alcohol content. Nobody traditionally marks beer or wine or flavored malt beverages like this one with proof, but there’s no reason they couldn’t.
Would look pretty funny to see things labeled as 8 proof, though.
1 Like
Coming from a country that has an “interesting” attitude to alcohol[1], it amazes me that you sell alcohol at gas stations. Is drink-driving not illegal? Don’t the moral guardians fire up about this??[2]
[1] Australia is always near, if not at, the top of the “worlds worst drinkers” lists
[2] silly me, of course they don’t. It’s not about controlling women /s
3 Likes
I think it might not actually be legal in the US to put a proof value on fermented beverages, as it may be misused to imply the presence of distilled spirits. That sort of thing is pretty tightly controlled in the USA, and someone here said the minis only have ABV on them. I used to work in alcohol advertising and have designed a few beer labels. But as I said above, I may be wrong, it’s also a crazy quilt of different arcane laws.
2 Likes
For the record, Fireball has never been a whisky. It’s a cinnamon and sugar infused liqueur. The whisky branding is down to a lack of stringent trading standards on what constitutes a whisky. I think Fireball marketing likes to stick with the whisky labelling as a means of distinction for their brand.
In any case, if you’re not a snob when it comes to your liqueur then it makes for a great mixer for spicing up cola or apple juice.
2 Likes
Yeah, you couldn’t put alcohol content on beer at all until sometime in the nineties. I looked (PDF, beware) and for malt-based beverages labels are required (when not prohibited by state law) to have the alcohol content in ABV (in very specific formats).
Proof isn’t mentioned at all (unlike in the guidelines for distilled spirits, where it’s optional). Which could be interpreted to mean it’s not forbidden.
I suspect this was their rationale when they got the label approved, anyway. Reading elsewhere they’re apparently fairly picky. I imagine their marketing people really wanted the flavored malt beverage version labeled with proof so they pushed it through, but I suspect most brewers wouldn’t bother.
Lawsuit and labeling aside, that shit looks nasty.
1 Like
The 1st time I saw alcohol of any sort for sale at a gas station, it was during the early 90s, and I was inland from LA. Dunno if they sold liquor or wine, but I remember lotsa beer ads. I’d twice driven across the country a few years before living near LA, and had seen that nowhere else.
Maybe a month ago, I saw gas stations here in Detroit and environs that had beer ads, and was so surprised I didn’t even think to look for wine or booze ones.
Seemed weird back in El Lay, still seems weird here.
3 Likes
We used to have drive thru liquor stores, FFS. It was almost a good idea.
When you get down to it, what’s the difference between selling booze at a gas station, the grocery store or liquor store? In the US, you’re driving to and from any of these places to purchase alcohol.
@MerelyGifted: it’s very common to find beer at gas stations in the burbs of the Metro. Booze is a lot less common, yet there’s a Shell station not far from me that sells booze. I suspect if they could get away with it, they would sell weed, too. But they can’t because our laws prohibit selling both things in one place (for now, anyway - I feel like someday Meijer and the Brewer’s Guild might push to change that).
5 Likes
Can you even imagine buying cookies and pot at Meijer’s Shifty Takers?!* Still blows my mind that we can buy weed from dispensaries!
Detroit recently sorted its overlong recreational conundrum, during which only medical could be sold w/in the city, a most welcome development.
*An old friend is not the only wag to thus alter Meijer’s Thrifty Acres, but was the first person I heard say it.
1 Like
Curious, I looked at the ready made cocktails section of my local grocery store-- specifically at margaritas. There seemed to be two price points-- the ones that cost 50 % more contained tequilla; the cheaper ones did not-- probably malt liquor and other euphemisms.
I live in one of those states where the makings of a real cocktail are sold by state owned stores, not grocery stores.
This may be the same sort of thing-- greed, compounded by the idea that hard liquor is best sold under additional layers of bureaucracy,
2 Likes
I wonder how many underaged youths nervously waiting outside of 7-eleven unnecessarily had adults purchase these for them.
2 Likes
We still have these, but they’re a lot less common that they used to be.
It was also fairly normal for a Police car to be sitting outside, watching to see if anyone decided not to wait and hitting them with a drink driving charge
2 Likes
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
