Brian F. Haara

“Shaped” might be an overstatement, but it’s a decent account of how changes in American business fed and responded to changes in American law. Americans often have a lot of pride in their productions but there are also plenty of sharp dealers, and bourbon has a lot of both sets of characters. For example, in 1885 a recipe book offered a variety of recipes that could be passed off as bourbon and rye; “rectified” liquor was sold as “bourbon.” The Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, which Haara identifies as the nation’s first consumer protection law, didn’t solve the problem, so President Taft formally defined “straight,” “blended,” and “imitation” whiskey in 1909. Where it’s not advertising/consumer protection law, it’s likely to be trademark law—plenty of producers copied and sued each other (sometimes both). These cases were part of the transformation of trademark from a narrow right against straight up fraud to a much more expansive right that allowed Maker’s Mark to prevail against Jose Cuervo’s red wax seal for its otherwise completely different-looking tequila. Recent years have seen less attention to consumer protection—bottlers no longer have to disclose the age of their product, though if they do disclose anything about the age of the components they have to specify the youngest (and least valuable).… (meer)