This is VinePair’s Booze News Weekly Roundup, where we gather the hottest headlines and product releases every Friday for a snapshot of what’s happening in the beverage alcohol industry. It’s been a relatively quiet few days, but this week, we have news on an Air Force veteran’s decade-long legal battle with Alaska, vineyard prices dropping in Bordeaux, and the newest product launches.
News to know:
- The Supreme Court agreed to review an 82-year-old Air Force veteran’s case in which the state of Alaska ruled he must forfeit his plane after transporting alcohol to a dry village in 2012. Abiding by state law, the government wanted to confiscate Ken Jouppi’s $95,000 aircraft after troopers found a six-pack of Budweiser in a passenger’s luggage before an in-state flight. Jouppi, who claims to have been unaware of the beer’s presence, argues that the forfeiture would violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against excessive fines.
- Five cups of joe might be good for cardio. The American Heart Association (AHA) released a scientific statement this week claiming that drinking up to 400 milligrams of caffeine, or the amount in three to five 8-ounce cups of coffee, per day is a healthy amount for most adults — and actually may benefit cardiovascular health. The AHA linked drinking five cups of coffee to lower risks of heart disease and failure, strokes, and type 2 diabetes.
- Vineyard prices in Bordeaux are taking a nosedive. Regional outlet Sud-Ouest published a series of graphs this week that depict the sagging price-per-hectare value across Bordeaux’s sub-regions since 2018. As an example, the average cost of a single hectare (roughly 2.5 acres) in the Médoc plummeted by 81.8 percent in the past eight years.
- Pathways made of ground-up, recycled cork from wine bottles now line the grounds of a public housing complex in Brooklyn. The nonprofit Public Housing Community Fund worked with the Cork Collective initiative to collect the roughly 450,000 corks needed from New York City restaurants before installing the environmentally sound pathways.
Product releases to watch:
- The WNBA’s all-time leading rebounder Tina Charles launched a craft beer company called 78 Brewing Co. in partnership with East Rock Brewing Company in New Haven, Conn. Charles, who recently announced her retirement and is also an Olympic gold medalist and two-time NCAA champion, wants each of the company’s beers to commemorate an iconic story. The flagship beer is 78-0 Hazy IPA, honoring her alma mater UCONN’s women’s basketball team’s 78-game winning streak between 2008 and 2010.
- More on sports and booze: Star American tennis player Tommy Paul launched a ready-to-drink vodka seltzer brand called Ciggy’s. Other than a website that loads a video game and an Instagram page featuring bro-y pictures, not much exists of the brand so far. According to the newsletter Feed Me, Ciggy’s is only available on Nantucket as of now.
- Starlight Distillery is releasing a 10-year-old bourbon and a 20-year-old brandy to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Only 100 bottles of the cask-strength bourbon and 150 of the brandy exist, and both will be available exclusively onsite in Borden, Ind., beginning Aug. 1.
- Suntory Global Spirits-owned -196 Vodka Seltzer has added a suite of hard green teas to its lineup of canned beverages. The hard teas will come in eight-packs in peach, lemon, strawberry and yuzu flavors for a suggested retail price of $19.99.
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