The Treasury Department is requesting a list of every alcoholic beverage that’s being sold at every store and online retailer.
As Suntory, maker of Japan’s first whiskey, and Jim Beam announced on Monday a $13.6 billion corporate marriage, further consolidating the liquor business, a little-known entity in the Treasury Department that both taxes and regulates alcohol was on a hunt for data.
An advertisement posted by the Treasury Department said the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is looking for a comprehensive list of alcoholic beverages â€" both domestic and imported â€" sold on retail websites and at grocery stores, wineries and other markets where the drinks would not be consumed on the premises. With a full list, the bureau can then use the information to determine what alcoholic beverages it needs to test.
Each year, the office purchases a random sample of beverages â€" wine, malt liquors, distilled spirits, etc. â€" and brings them back to its office for testing to make sure that labels on the drinks do not mislead consumers.
The bureau is the only government agency where an employee may be testing the shimmering flecks in Goldschlager to determine whether they are made of real gold, or pondering whether a bottle of snake wine has enough liquid in it to qualify as a drink â€" and not a snack.
The Associated Press wrote about the bureau last year, calling it “a regulator that protects its industry from rules it deems unfair, a tax collector that sometimes cuts its companies a break.†The United States is the only country with an alcohol regulator based in its Treasury Department.
“Some of its decisions are open to negotiation,†the reporter, Daniel Wagner, who is now at the Center for Public Integrity, wrote in the article. “A tequila-like liquor with a scorpion floating in it made scientists balk until the producer convinced them that the scorpions are farm-raised and non-toxic. In other words, this may be the only federal agency that responds favorably to receiving scorpion candy in the mail.â€
