Old Monk buckles under FSSAI pressure, tells HC it will drop ‘7 years old blended’ from label

Mumbai: Mohan Rocky Springwater, the makers of the popular rum brand Old Monk, informed the Bombay High Court on Monday that it is ready to relabel its product, removing the “7 years old blended” mention.

“I will in every single label blank out the line that states ‘7 years blend’,” senior counsel Navroz H. Seervai, appearing for the company, informed the court

A division bench headed by acting Chief Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Gautam A. Ankhad, after hearing the arguments, asked the company to submit a reworked label by Thursday.

The bench noted that a consumer could be misled into thinking the rum had been aged for seven years. The court also questioned the alcoholic beverage maker about some of the text on the label, which was “so small that nobody can read”.

Counsel representing the regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), argued that Old Monk was made by adding rum flavour to neutral spirit rather than acquiring the natural characteristics of rum and said they have acted in accordance with the law.

FSSAI had in June imposed restrictions on the sale of rum, requiring the company to label it as a “rum flavoured spirit”.

The court also directed the food regulator to specify the requirements and details that should be included in the label to clearly distinguish the product. The court also told the excise department to check the revised label and start the approval procedure on an urgent basis.

Old Monk, besides stating that it was willing to immediately submit revised labels and remove the reference to “7 years old blended”. They also highlighted that they have suffered a loss of ₹1 crore per day for 120 days of the ban.

“The age declaration on a blended spirit must reflect the age of the youngest matured spirit in the blend," Poonam Chandel, an industry expert and former managing director of NeuWorld Spirits, told Mint. “In this case, since the product contains spirit of a much younger age, the ‘7 years old’ declaration clearly needed to be corrected. … Old Monk has carried substantially the same label for years, and the declaration seems to have simply continued without being revisited as the product and regulatory environment evolved.”

That may point to complacency in reviewing an old label, but it should not automatically be interpreted as deliberate misrepresentation, Chandel said. “The company agreeing to correct the label is, therefore, the appropriate step.”

United Spirits, which faced a similar ban, withdrew its case on 24 August. Diageo, the parent company of United Spirits, and other liquor makers have agreed to comply with FSSAI directives to either remove the disputed flavouring agents or relabel their products, Mint reported on 18 August.

The change in label will take place, retaining the composition of the alcoholic beverage intact, people aware of the matter said.

What FSSAI objected to

The dispute stems from laboratory tests conducted by FSSAI, which found the presence of external artificial or nature-identical flavouring substances in the products. According to the regulator, these substances masked the products’ natural characteristics.

Based on its findings, FSSAI prohibited the sale of specific variants of McDowell's No. 1 Rum, Antiquity Blue Whisky and Royal Challenge Whisky manufactured by United Spirits; select Old Monk rum variants of Mohan Rocky Springwater; and Bagpiper Deluxe Whisky and Old Cask Deluxe XXX Rum produced by Inbrew Beverages.

FSSAI cited the Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages) Regulations, 2018, which require standardized alcoholic beverages such as rum and whisky to possess their characteristic taste and aroma. The regulator argued that adding “rum flavour” to rum or “whisky flavour” to whisky misrepresents these standardized products.