Dive Brief:
- Diageo Americas Supply Inc., owner of the George Dickel whiskey brand, has filed suit against the state of Tennessee over enforcement of a law requiring distillers to store their alcohol within the state's borders that dates back to 1937.
- Keith Bell, director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission, wrote to the company on March 20, advising it that it was in violation of the law because it stores some of its George Dickel-branded whiskey at storage facilities in Louisville, Kentucky.
- On the grounds that that the law "prevents the movement of commercial goods in interstate commerce," a constitutional right for business, Diageo is asking for a federal judge to issue an injunction that would force the state to stop enforcing the storage law.
Dive Insight:
They really take their whiskey seriously in Tennessee, as we've seen in the controversy surrounding legal ramifications for using the state name to identify whiskey. Though the change to that particular law was put on hold, now there's another state-defined whiskey law under fire. It's likely that Tennessee will not be able to defer making a decision in this case, as it did for the question of labeling, so there should be some shakeup in the land of Tennessee whiskey in the near future.