'Flavouring neutral alcohol isn't right in spirit'
India's food regulator, FSSAI, has prohibited alcohol manufacturers from adding artificial flavors to spirits like rum and whisky to mimic natural aging. The regulator argues this practice misleads consumers and mandates that such products be clearly labeled as 'flavored spirits' rather than standard liquor.
Why it matters
This ruling protects consumer rights and industry standards by preventing the misrepresentation of mass-produced neutral alcohol as premium, matured spirits.
NEW DELHI: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has said alcoholic beverage manufacturers cannot add "rum flavour" to rum or "whisky flavour" to whisky and market them as standard products, saying the practice misrepresents the true nature of the beverage and misleads consumers.The regulator said the issue is not the use of permitted flavouring substances, but addition of the flavour of the standardised alcoholic beverage itself, which serves no legitimate purpose. It said the characteristic taste and aroma of products such as rum and whisky should develop naturally through the base ingredients, fermentation, distillation and maturation. However, inspections found that some manufacturers were producing beverages largely from neutral alcohol, which has no characteristic flavour, and then adding identical flavouring substances to recreate the taste and aroma of rum or whisky.
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