Federal shutdown stalls launch of wines, holiday spirits

California vintners, needing agency’s OK, face bottling and production delays.

- By Ari NATTER AND CHARLES GORRIVAN

THE U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau says it has “suspended all non-excepted operations.”

(MYUNG J. CHUN Los Angeles Times)

America will have to wait for the new creamy version of Magic Rabbit chocolate and peanut butter-flavored whiskey.

The liquor’s planned January debut is another casualty of the government shutdown, which has ground toa halt Treasury Department approvals that alcoholic beverage makers must obtain before introducing a new product or making changes to their recipes or labels.

The consequences include delays in the availability of some craft breweries’ Christmas beers and new California wines as well as the forced postponement of new herb-flavored hard seltzers.

“It's huge,” said Rob Pinson, who provides counsel to Tennessee distillers as well as other wineries and breweries as a partner with New Orleans-based law firm Adams & Reese. “If you can’t get the product out into the market, you can’t make money.”

The logjam holds back an industry already struggling. U.S. spirits exports are sinking amid Trump's trade war, and overall alcohol sales are falling as younger consumers, women and health-minded drinkers cut back. Just 54% of adults now say they drink, according to a Gallup poll released in August, the lowest level in polling going back to 1939.