Nutrition labels for alcoholic drinks on tap?

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Alcoholic beverages soon could have nutrition labels like those on food packaging, but only if the producers want to put them there.

The Treasury Department, which regulates alcohol, said this past week that beer, wine and spirits companies can use labels that include serving size, servings per container, calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat per serving.

Such package labels have never before been approved.

The labels are voluntary, so it will be up to beverage companies to decide whether to use them on their products.

The decision is a temporary, first step while the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau, or TTB, continues to consider final rules on alcohol labels.

Rules proposed in 2007 would have made labels mandatory, but the agency never made the rules final.

The labeling regulation, issued Tuesday, comes after a decade of lobbying by hard liquor companies and consumer groups, with clearly different goals.

The liquor companies want to advertise low calories and low carbohydrates in their products. Consumer groups want alcoholic drinks to have the same transparency as packaged foods, which are required to be labeled.