Treasury Proposal to Derail Australian Distilling Industry
On the 17th of June this year I received from Treasury a proposal to remove the necessity to mature new make spirit in wood before it can be called whisky, brandy or rum.
Currently a minimum period of 2 years maturation in wood is required before the spirit may be sold as any of these products. In Scotland the period is 3 years.
The reason stated were:
“These maturation periods were introduced in 1906 with the spirits Act and now appear out of place. Additionally, some manufacturers have put forward a view that the requirements unnecessarily impede trade in these spirits.”
and as such
“Treasury’s view is that the maturation requirements should be repealed from the Spirits Act as they appear to have no continuing relevance to the effective management of Australia’s modern alcohol taxation regime.”
After Treasuries declaration of this proposal I have been inundated with letters of support for the current regime from a large cross section of the society.
As you would expect Bakery Hill submitted counter arguments to the proposal and hopes that together with all the other submissions that sanity and good common sense will prevail.
July 19th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
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January 28th, 2006 at 10:52 am
The removal of the two year mature requirement on Australian spirit will lead to the decline of the Australian Industry. The Australian Distillers’ Association Inc who are lobbing the government to remove such requirements should re-think their strategies. As it can only led to the destruction of the industry and encourage the cowboys to make below world standard products.