Comrade Putin has sicced his food police on Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey Liqueur. The consumer watchdog apparatus Rospotrebnadzor claimed it had found potentially hazardous chemical substances and the product did not conform to Russian labeling regulations.
Brown-Forman, owner of Jack Daniel’s, has been selling spirits in Russia for 15 years and has complied with all regulations. In this case, Honey Liqueur is not registered as a whiskey since it is regarded as a “spirit beverage” in Russia and therefore should not and could not comply with Russia’s whiskey specifications. It has, of course, complied with the rules for “spirit beverages”.
The Russians said they planned to confiscate the Jack Daniel’s whiskey in circulation. That’s one way for the apparatchiks to get some free booze.
Mr. Former KGB also muscled McDonald’s by closing four restaurants in Moscow including the one on Pushkin Square, the most heavily patronized McDonald’s in the world, citing alleged food-safety violations and mislabeled nutrition information.
Food inspectors “have been instruments of Russian foreign policy for years,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In response to expanded Western sanctions for Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, Russia has banned a wide range of food and beverages from the U.S. and Europe.
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