Kombucha can no longer be legally sold as non-alcoholic in the state of South Carolina. A new rule change in state code set a maximum alcohol content for beers and other fermented beverages, but did not set a minimum alcohol level. Any fermented beverage with an alcohol content above 0.0% — any trace of alcohol — is now considered alcoholic by default.
Last month, TFA wrote about a decades-old South Carolina law that threatened kombucha and non-alcoholic beverage producers selling their fermented drinks in the state. Kombucha, which typically contains less than 0.5% alcohol [the legal definition of an alcoholic beverage in the U.S.], has always been deemed non-alcoholic, sold on grocery store shelves next to refrigerated juices.
Now, any brand selling a fermented beverage in the state must apply for an alcohol license, and their drink cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 21.
“Effective immediately, all of these producers and retailers will have to cease business until they receive the proper licensing, which will take several months to get if they’re located in South Carolina and the money to get their facilities up to code,” said Brook Bristow, an attorney specializing in beverage law, in a statement about the rule change. “So, until then, no sales, i.e., no money.”
Adds Gabriel Coggins, owner of the S.C.-based Kava Konnection:“Of all the things lawmakers could focus on to restrict and take away from the public, kombucha was the last thing I expected. It’s a healthy product, and the only logical reason I can see beyond some strange maliciousness toward it is that they just didn’t understand what they were doing.”
Read more (Greenville Journal)