Wine Meow Kan News 2021/07/27｜Japanese Sake Miscellaneous #27 Does it matter whether the color is dark or light?

Is the chroma cap set 60 years ago the reason for today's slow growth of shochu overseas? The National Revenue Service says it's not a rock-solid rule, but Tibetans disagree.

Even shochu that has been aged in wooden barrels for many years, the color looks like a light cream color, that is because in order to comply with the provisions of the Liquor Tax Law "the degree of coloration should be below 0.08" - if you still want to use "shochu" If the item is shipped -- it has to be filtered with activated carbon (the disadvantage is that the original flavor will also be reduced) or mixed with transparent shochu to control the degree of coloration, so as not to violate the regulations.

This "color rule" was based on a circular first issued by the Internal Revenue Service in 1961. If it is the same color as whisky, it may cause consumers to misunderstand that "it is similar in color and A is cheaper", so it is necessary to establish a standard enough to distinguish it from whisky with a higher tax rate as a high-end liquor. The current standard was established in 1967, which stipulates that shochu can only be about one-tenth the color concentration of whisky.

Although the National Tax Agency stated that "if there is a consensus in the industry, it will also consider abolishing it", but there are various opinions in the Tibetan Yuan, and there is still no consensus. As times change, what was reasonable at the time in the 1960s is no longer in line with the market conditions of the 2020s. Who the hell wants to maintain that?

We outsiders can't talk about tax rates, subsidies, Tibetan dollar scale vs. cost impact, etc. But if we look at the reciprocity of international trade, there will always be a day when there will be zero tariffs, and we will not rely on the tax system alone. To solve the problem of shrinking market.

However, there is one point you might want to think about: when your per capita GDP is soaring year by year, is there any cheap imported wine? That has nothing to do with the price of foreign wines in the original place of origin, but how people set prices in the market they want to enter. If they are not sold as high-end wines, they may not be able to sell. Taxes are only pumped a little more. No matter how expensive high-end wine is, some people will still buy it and make more profit. The problem of imitation wine/fake wine/bootleg wine comes along with it.

By the way, Japan's GDP was $53.51 billion ($563.59/person) in 1961 and $123.8 billion ($1228.91/person) in 1967.

Those who can afford high-end liquor (whiskey) in pocket Mike will not care about the color of the shochu, the key point is the word ウイスキー. Who the hell wants to limit shochu with coloration? Maybe it's because he wants to cut off the potential opponent "Whiskey-flavored shochu" first, but it's not necessarily true.

It was still an era when whisky was of high quality with color depth. Today, consumers in many markets still think that color depth is beautiful, or they classify transparent and colorless wine as cheap wine. Therefore, shochu has been promoted overseas. Can't be deployed.

Obviously, there is no correlation between the depth of color and the level of quality. In general, it is a matter of human nature.

Original news: Overseas で時び悩む焼酎, why is it 60 years ago からの "color regulation"? National Tax House "Iwapan Regulations ではない" が锵元の中でも様々な Opinion

This is the only news that I want to talk about this week, and it is not a new topic. After all, coloration has been discussed for a long time, but it is rarely publicized by the media. I've written a year-long JiuMeowan news series, and it's over here, and then I'll write it according to fate.

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