(Brooklyn, NY) – This week’s brewery event featuring The Tonic didn’t quite go as originally planned for The Brooklyn Brewery.
The brewery announced on Monday that the TTB denied the label for The Tonic. The TTB, the short name for an agency called the Federal Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, governs product labels for beer (bottles, cans and kegs), wine and liquor year-round.
This came not only after doing up all the artwork as The Tonic but running advertisements under the old name as well. Fortunately, this is a draft only beer so the cost of re-packaging is virtually nil aside from any point-of-sale materials like posters. In 100 years, those actually might fetch a pretty penny.
The new name for the beer, which was inspired by a cocktail called The Penicillin, is The Concoction. For what it’s worth, The Penicillin was also denied by the TTB, putting Brooklyn Brewery in rare company.
So why all the fuss over the old names?
They could mislead or persuade a prospective buyer into thinking there are health benefits into drinking the alcoholic product. The concept is far-fetched but could hypothetically prompt someone into abusing alcohol due to perceived health benefits.
The Concoction still has yet to be approved as well and the beer isn’t expected to be released until mid-June.
Hasn’t it been proven that there are health benefits related to the moderate consumption of alcohol? Yes, yes it has been…
This is the same rationale that the TTB used when they denied DFH’s Prescription Pils. Probably should have seen this coming even though this medicinal reference is a bit archane.
It was pretty funny. The name changed just an hour or so before the event. The signs for the concoction were hand made and were placed just under signs for the tonic that had been crossed out. Garrett took it in stride and it was a great event. Interesting tasting beer though
Call it “The Not A Tonic” and submit a label…by their logic they would have to approve.
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