Commentary: FDA should have no power to ban caffeine in alcohol

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On Nov. 13, the Food & Drug Administration sent notices to 30 alcohol manufacturers that they may be in violation of the law for adding caffeine to various alcoholic beverages.

Since caffeine and alcohol comprise two of my four basic food groups (nicotine and lard being the other two), I am deeply concerned by this. As things stand now, I can drink Starbuck’s liqueur and kill two birds with one stone.

If my Starbuck’s liqueur is outlawed, I will have to buy my coffee and my alcohol separately, just as I currently must do with lard and nicotine (Can you imagine how much money you could make if the FDA permitted the sale of nicotine-infused lard?).

Actually, though, looking at the list of 30 manufacturers and the targeted products, Starbuck’s isn’t on the list. Neither is Kahlua, which also contains caffeine, but doesn’t taste as good as the Starbuck’s.

As far as I can tell, what the FDA is doing is this: If an alcoholic product contains caffeine naturally, because coffee beans are an ingredient, the product is okay. But if caffeine is an additive, sans coffee, then it is bad news.

Assuming this is the basis for the distinction, it is self-evidently arbitrary.

But there is also no basis for prohibiting the combination of caffeine and alcohol, whether the combination is natural or not. The only downside I’ve found in my very extensive experience with this product is that it can be awfully difficult to fall asleep at night after drinking six shots of Starbuck’s at the tavern.

But the more important question is how and why the FDA ever got the authority to regulate this in the first place.

Even an old-fashioned, turn-of-the-century Stalwart like me will admit that the Progressive movement wasn’t completely horrid. I don’t want rat droppings in my chorizo any more than you do. But it shouldn’t be the business of the FDA to decide whether I eat the chorizo in the first place.

Similarly, while I’m content to have the FDA regulate the production of alcohol so that it is not adulterated with embalming fluid, it has no business prohibiting alcohol’s combination with another legal product I desire, like caffeine.

Ultimately, what is required is a limitation of the FDA’s authority to what the Progressives intended — regulating the safety and labeling of the products themselves. A prohibition on artificially-caffeinated alcoholic beverages is not a legitimate safety regulation, but an abusive interference with liberty of contract.

By the way, if drinking Starbuck’s liqueur straight is too intense for your taste buds, drizzling a little bit over vanilla ice cream is totally delish, too. Just make sure the curtains are drawn, in case there are FDA agents outside your window. Who knows what they would do if they knew people liked to combine alcohol, caffeine and a dessert made with heavy whipping cream and sugar.