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> Because White Claw is brewed like beer, it’s taxed like beer, which is important because beer is taxed in the U.S. at a much lower rate than spirits. If you m
by kingbirdy 7y ago
> Because White Claw is brewed like beer, it’s taxed like beer, which is important because beer is taxed in the U.S. at a much lower rate than spirits. If you made a product similar to White Claw by mixing vodka with seltzer and putting it in a can, a six-pack would be subject to almost $2 in additional taxes when sold in New York City.
Important takeaway from the article. This also answers my own question as to why drinks like Mike's Hard, Smirnoff Ice, etc are malt beverages. Hopefully the sugar base instead of a grain base catches on for new drinks.
- flanbiscuit 7y agoDoes it being a sugar base make the alcohol closer to a rum?
- stochastic_monk 7y agoBeing made from sugar, it more completely ferments. Beer has residual short-chain carbohydrates that leave calories and provide body. It wouldn’t be much like rum unless it were brewed with dark sugar.
- Mikeb85 7y ago> leave calories Ethanol itself is most of the calories in any alcoholic drink.
- monocasa 7y agoFor people curious on the breakdown: A 12 oz can of 5% abv is .6 fluid ounces of ethanol. That's 14 grams, or 98 calories. A Budweiser has 145 calories, White Claw has 100, Old Chub Scottish ale has 264. Basically I see the benefit over most craft beer, but over macros it's not that big of a difference.
- AmericanChopper 7y agoIf you add up the average consumption of alcohol for an American in a year, the difference between 100 calories per unit and 145 calories per unit amounts to something like an additional 45-60 minutes of exercise per week to offset. There’s a lot of variables there, so it could potentially be more or less, but it’s non-trivial.
- stochastic_monk 7y agoBeing low carb is appealing to a lot of people.
- Infernal 7y agoTo be fair Old Chub is north of 8% abv I do believe.
- basch 7y agoThat is a calorie if the alcohol is burned in a flame. An alcohol calorie isnt a carb calorie. https://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/10/cocktail-science-do-alcohol-calories-count-digesting-spirits.html https://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/10/cocktail-science-do-a... https://www.quora.com/Do-calories-in-alcohol-really-exist-If-you-drink-only-vodka-no-food-will-you-get-fat https://www.quora.com/Do-calories-in-alcohol-really-exist-If... I cant find an exact answer, but combining the ideas that: the metabolic pathways for ethanol take precedence over the metabolism of other food components, leading to fat conversion and storage of higher-kcal foods than would be expected if the energy for metabolism was not diverted to the alcohol; the extra energy needed to metabolize alcohol should become a net drain on energy reserves; and alcohol is almost never fully metabolized, but rather excreted as acetic acid - I think it is safe to assume that an ethanol calorie actually provides the body very little energy AND if youre not eating while you are drinking there isnt a way for the body to store the energy as fat for later.
- nkozyra 7y agoThough the calorie count is misleading because so little of it is metabolized
- adrianmonk 7y agoI'm not a liquor expert by any means, but I believe cachaça is made with sugar cane juice and is considered a type of rum. Or maybe a close relative of rum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cachaça https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cachaça
- twic 7y agoRhum agricole and cachaça are made from sugar-cane juice. That's not as pure as refined sugar, but it makes a much cleaner spirit than molasses. The bigger difference between White Claw and rum, i would say, is that rum is distilled, whereas White Claw is only fermented. I'm not sure there are any traditional non-distilled drinks made from sugar, and Wikipedia is down so i basically have no way to fake being well-informed as i usually do.
- aripickar 7y agoRum is generally made from fermented molasses, though not always. Sugar base would make it closer to cachaça, a Brazilian liquor.
- 01100011 7y agoNot necessarily. One thing that seems to be often overlooked is that yeast do not simply convert sugar into ethanol. They require nutrients and will produce different compounds(Google tryptophol) if a nutrient runs out and prevents complete metabolism.
- mustacheemperor 7y agoIIRC this tax law pretty much single handedly ended the Zima and wine cooler fad in the nineties, since it made those products financially unviable. They were popular for a reason, so I share NYT’s sentiment on the white claw craze being practically overdue and your expectation it’s only the first of many packaged drinks like this.
- gojomo 7y agoThat doesn't sound right. I believe spirits have been higher-taxed than beer/wine, in most places, since long before the 90s. And, Zima, as a "malt beverage", would seem to have qualified for the same beer-like treatment as White Claw today.