07/08/2026
WHEN A LABEL BECOMES A LIE: THE OLD MONK CONTROVERSY AND THE CONSUMER’S RIGHT TO KNOW
The State may regulate the bottle. It may regulate what goes into the bottle. But above all, it must ensure that the bottle does not tell the consumer a story which its contents cannot truthfully sustain.
There are controversies which concern commerce. There are controversies which concern regulation. And then there are controversies which, beneath the seemingly ordinary dispute between a manufacturer and a statutory authority, raise a far more fundamental question:
Does an Indian consumer have the right to know what he is actually buying?
The controversy surrounding Old Monk and several other well-known brands of rum and whisky is one such case.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has initiated enforcement action against specified alcoholic beverages after laboratory examination reportedly detected artificial or nature-identical flavouring substances used to reproduce the characteristic profile of rum or whisky. Among the products affected are three Old Monk variants manufactured at the concerned facility, besides products belonging to United Spirits, Inbrew Beverages and other manufacturers. (Reuters)
The public discussion, unfortunately, has already descended into two equally irresponsible extremes.
One cries: “Old Monk has been exposed.”
The other responds: “FSSAI has gone mad.”
Law permits neither conclusion without evidence.
A regulator is not infallible merely because it regulates.
A legendary brand is not immune merely because it is legendary.
And consumer loyalty is no substitute for statutory compliance.
The case must therefore be stripped of nostalgia, headlines and corporate reputation and placed upon the cold table of law.
THE FIRST QUESTION: WHAT IS RUM?
That question sounds almost absurd.
It is not.
Law frequently begins by defining things which commerce would prefer to leave conveniently undefined.
Rum is not necessarily every alcoholic liquid which tastes like rum. Whisky is not necessarily every spirit which smells like whisky.
The Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages) Regulations, 2018 prescribe standards governing alcoholic beverages in India. FSSAI itself identifies those Regulations as the statutory framework governing such products. (FSSAI)
The significance is profound.
A product’s legal identity cannot be manufactured merely by putting its name upon a bottle.
The label must follow the product. The product cannot be made to follow the label.
FSSAI’s allegation is that in certain cases manufacturers have taken neutral spirit—which by its nature possesses little of the characteristic sensory identity associated with traditional rum or whisky—and introduced artificial or nature-identical flavouring substances to reproduce that identity.
The regulator says that there is no internationally recognised manufacturing practice by which “rum flavour” is simply added to rum or “whisky flavour” to whisky so as to substitute for the characteristics ordinarily generated through ingredients, fermentation, distillation or maturation. (Reported by Reuters)
If that factual allegation is established, a serious legal question immediately arises:
Is the manufacturer making rum—or manufacturing the impression of rum?
That distinction is not linguistic pedantry.
It is the very heart of food regulation.
A synthetic resemblance to a legally defined product cannot automatically confer upon the imitation the legal identity of the original.
A diamond does not become genuine because the imitation sparkles.
Honey does not become honey because glucose syrup has been taught to taste sweet.
And spirit does not necessarily become rum merely because chemistry has persuaded the tongue to recognise rum.
BUT FSSAI TOO MUST ANSWER TO LAW
Yet regulatory power is not a synonym for regulatory omnipotence.
This is where the industry’s challenge deserves serious attention.
The Alcoholic Beverages Regulations themselves recognise flavouring in the regulatory architecture. Indeed, the consolidated framework expressly refers, for specified parameters, to categories including flavoured or premix rum, whisky, vodka and gin. (FSSAI)
Therefore FSSAI cannot win merely by declaring:
“Rum flavour in rum sounds absurd.”
It may indeed sound absurd.
But absurdity is not a statutory provision.
The fundamental principle of administrative law is older than many regulators:
An executive authority may enforce the law. It cannot enlarge the law by rhetoric.
If a flavouring substance is otherwise legally permissible, then FSSAI must identify with precision the provision under which its particular use renders the finished product non-conforming.
A press clarification cannot amend a regulation.
An analogy cannot create an offence.
An administrative interpretation cannot become delegated legislation merely because it has been announced with confidence.
The manufacturer is therefore entitled to ask:
Show us the law.
If the law expressly prohibits the formulation, obedience follows.
If the product falls outside the statutory standard for rum or whisky, the consequences follow.
But if FSSAI seeks to create an entirely new prohibition which neither Parliament nor the Regulations have created, then the regulator itself crosses the boundary between enforcement and legislation.
That boundary is constitutional.
THE REAL CASE AGAINST THE INDUSTRY MAY BE STRONGER THAN THE FLAVOURING CASE
There is, however, a deeper issue which manufacturers would be unwise to underestimate.
Even if the flavour itself is permissible, the description of the finished product may not be.
Food law does not merely regulate ingredients.
It regulates truth.
The consumer standing before a shop counter cannot inspect a distillery. He cannot chemically analyse a bottle. He cannot examine maturation registers, blending records or laboratory chromatograms.
His entire commercial decision is made upon what the manufacturer chooses to tell him.
That asymmetry creates a corresponding duty of candour.
If the dominant substance in a bottle is neutral spirit and the characteristic identity represented to the consumer has substantially been recreated through added flavour, the question becomes unavoidable:
Should the bottle say “Rum”—or should it say “Rum-Flavoured Spirit”?
This is where FSSAI’s case acquires considerable force.
The regulator’s objection is ultimately capable of being defended not merely as a question of flavour chemistry but as a question of true product identity.
There is a world of legal difference between saying:
“You cannot manufacture this.”
and saying:
“You may manufacture it, but you must tell the purchaser what it actually is.”
The first proposition requires unmistakable regulatory authority.
The second goes to the foundations of consumer protection.
THE CONSUMER DOES NOT PURCHASE CHEMISTRY; HE PURCHASES REPRESENTATION
Modern consumer law recognises something commercial law once ignored:
Information has economic value.
The purchaser of an aged spirit pays not merely for alcohol.
He may pay for maturation.
He may pay for the raw material.
He may pay for provenance.
He may pay for craftsmanship.
He may pay for the expectation that time—not merely a flavouring laboratory—produced the aroma for which he paid.
If those characteristics have commercial value, their truth has legal value.
A manufacturer cannot demand a premium for a history which exists only on its label.
That principle applies with particular severity to age claims.
“7 YEARS OLD”: THREE WORDS, ONE ENORMOUS LEGAL QUESTION
The Old Monk controversy becomes especially serious where age-related descriptions enter the picture.
FSSAI has reportedly questioned the representation associated with a “7 Years Old Blended” variant, on the allegation that matured rum constituted only a minor component while neutral spirit formed a substantial part of the blend.
That allegation must, of course, be proved through the actual batch records and formulation.
But the law governing age declarations is illuminating.
The Alcoholic Beverages Regulations expressly provide that where an age claim is made in conjunction with the word “aged”, the stated age must correspond to the youngest spirit in the blend. (FSSAI)
This provision embodies impeccable consumer logic.
A producer cannot pour one spoonful of seven-year-old spirit into a sea of younger spirit and baptise the entire ocean “seven years aged.”
Time cannot be blended by arithmetic.
Maturity cannot be diluted and then multiplied through typography.
If a consumer sees “7 YEARS OLD” emblazoned upon a bottle, the law must ask what impression those words create in the mind of a reasonable purchaser.
Does he understand:
“Some unspecified fraction of this liquid may have once spent seven years maturing somewhere”?
Or does he reasonably understand:
“This spirit is seven years old”?
That question cannot be escaped through verbal gymnastics.
At the same time, there is an intriguing question of statutory construction which the courts may eventually have to confront.
The Regulation specifically speaks of an age claim made in conjunction with “aged.”
What if a label says “7 Years Old” rather than “7 Years Aged”?
The manufacturer may argue that a restrictive statutory provision cannot simply be extended beyond its language.
The regulator may answer that consumer-protection law looks to substance rather than ingenious semantics and that “seven years old” communicates exactly the age representation the rule exists to regulate.
That is a genuine legal controversy.
But one principle should survive whichever interpretation ultimately prevails:
The more prominently a manufacturer advertises age, the less freedom it should have to conceal what exactly has aged.
A HERITAGE BRAND HAS NO HEREDITARY IMMUNITY
Old Monk occupies an unusual place in Indian popular culture.
For generations it has been more than a product. It has acquired nostalgia, folklore and extraordinary consumer loyalty.
But the Constitution recognises no doctrine of regulatory grandfatherhood.
A company cannot say:
“We have done this for decades, therefore the law must permit it.”
If anything, the longer a representation has influenced millions of purchasers, the greater—not lesser—is the public interest in determining whether it is accurate.
Reputation can be evidence of goodwill.
It is never evidence of compliance.
The oldest brand must obey the newest valid regulation just as the smallest manufacturer must.
There are no aristocrats before a food statute.
NOR MAY FSSAI DESTROY REPUTATION BY PRESS RELEASE
But constitutional fairness runs both ways.
A regulatory authority wielding coercive power against a decades-old commercial brand carries an equally grave responsibility.
Words such as “sub-standard”, “artificial flavour”, “ban” and “non-compliant” can cause enormous commercial and reputational consequences long before a court adjudicates the controversy.
Reuters reported that FSSAI described investigated products as “sub-standard” because of external artificial or nature-identical flavouring. (Reuters)
That expression must be handled responsibly.
Sub-standard is not necessarily synonymous with unsafe.
A product may fail a prescribed compositional or identity standard without being poisonous, toxic or dangerous to human health.
Unless there is evidence of a health hazard, no regulator, journalist or commentator should casually convert a standards dispute into an allegation that consumers have been drinking dangerous liquor.
The State possesses enormous coercive power.
With that power comes an equally enormous obligation of precision.
A regulator should speak through reasoned orders, scientific evidence and statutory provisions—not insinuation.
THE COURT MUST DEMAND THE RECORD, NOT THE RHETORIC
If this controversy reaches final judicial determination, the case should not be decided through brand mythology or colourful analogies about adding coffee flavour to coffee.
The Court should call for the primary record.
It should ask:
What was the exact formulation of the sampled batch?
What percentage consisted of neutral spirit?
What percentage consisted of matured rum or whisky spirit?
What was the age of each component?
What precise flavouring substances were used?
Were those substances permitted under the applicable standards?
Under which statutory provision does FSSAI say their particular use alters the legal identity of the product?
What methodology did the laboratory employ?
Were the samples properly drawn, sealed and tested?
Was the manufacturer furnished the report?
Was a statutory opportunity for appeal or referral analysis available and respected?
What exactly did the front label represent?
What would the ordinary consumer reasonably understand from those words?
Was the same formulation or label historically known to and accepted by regulatory or excise authorities?
And, above all:
Did FSSAI enforce an existing rule—or create a new one through interpretation?
Those questions will separate law from theatre.
THE PRINCIPLE IS BIGGER THAN OLD MONK
This dispute should not be trivialised into a battle over one celebrated rum.
It concerns a much larger constitutional economy.
Indian consumers purchase thousands of processed products whose commercial identities depend upon flavour, age, composition, origin, purity, method of manufacture and percentage of actual ingredients.
If regulators become powerless to demand truthful identity, sophisticated chemistry can convert almost anything into almost anything—and the label becomes a licence for fiction.
But if regulators are permitted to impose new prohibitions without clear statutory authority, businesses cease to be governed by law and begin to be governed by administrative mood.
Both outcomes are unacceptable.
A civilised legal order requires two disciplines simultaneously:
The manufacturer must not deceive the citizen.
The regulator must not exceed the statute.
That is the constitutional balance.
THE SOLUTION IS RADICAL ONLY BECAUSE COMMON SENSE HAS BECOME RADICAL
There is a remarkably simple way forward.
Require every major distilled alcoholic beverage to disclose, prominently and intelligibly:
the nature of the base spirit;
the percentage, where relevant, of matured spirit and neutral spirit;
whether characteristic external flavouring has been added;
whether such flavouring is natural, nature-identical or artificial as legally classified;
and, whenever an age is advertised, precisely what component of the beverage carries that age.
No microscopic footnote.
No linguistic camouflage.
No marketing poetry where chemistry should speak.
Put the material information where the consumer can see it.
Then let the citizen decide.
That is what a free market means.
A market in which the seller knows everything and the purchaser is permitted to know almost nothing is not a free market.
It is an informational ambush.
THE BOTTLE MAY BELONG TO THE COMPANY. THE TRUTH BELONGS TO THE CONSUMER.
India does not need a war on Old Monk.
Nor does it need a war on FSSAI.
It needs something much less dramatic and much more revolutionary:
truth in the marketplace.
If Old Monk satisfies the statutory definition of rum, let no regulator malign it by administrative invention.
If the flavouring complained of is expressly permissible and the legal identity remains satisfied, FSSAI must respect the limits of its delegated authority.
But if neutral alcohol substantially masquerades as traditionally manufactured rum because chemistry supplies what fermentation, distillation or maturation did not, the consumer must be told.
And if a bottle speaks majestically of seven years while the liquid inside tells a materially younger story, no amount of heritage can make the representation sacred.
Commercial speech enjoys protection.
It does not enjoy a constitutional right to ambiguity.
Regulation enjoys authority.
It does not enjoy a constitutional right to legislate by clarification.
The judicial task is therefore not to choose between Old Monk and FSSAI.
It is to choose law over reputation, evidence over assertion, disclosure over concealment and statutory authority over bureaucratic improvisation.
For ultimately the controversy can be reduced to one question that neither a multinational corporation nor the mightiest regulator should be permitted to evade:
What, precisely, is inside the bottle—and why should the citizen who paid for it not be told?
A bottle may contain spirit.
A brand may carry history.
A label may carry romance.
But when commerce speaks to the citizen, truth must be the strongest spirit of all.
Narendra Kumar Goswami
Advocate, Supreme Court of India. 🇮🇳
