Sri Lanka’s Commissioner General of Excise, M J Gunasiri, has announced that excise revenues from arrack and other alcoholic beverages have plummeted by 40%.

Counterfeit liquor, which for years has been a problem for connoisseurs of fine wine, champagnes, and single-malt scotch, has started to become an issue for America’s fine brown liquor – bourbon.

The consumption of alcoholic beverages is deeply embedded in many societies worldwide. According to Statista, global consumption in 2019 generated $1.53 trillion in legally registered sales (recorded alcohol), equating to total volume sales of more than 296 billion litres.

The Indian state of Rajasthan is implementing holographic tax stamps and an end-to-end traceability system on liquor products, to allow the state excise department to track and trace each bottle and case of liquor.

After the Indian states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa, consumers in Delhi will soon be able to buy liquor in 180ml Tetra Pak containers.

If you rang in the New Year with that hard-to-find bottle of bourbon you had been hunting down in off-the-beaten-path stores or through a private social media collectors’ group, you might have been getting more than you bargained for… you might have gotten counterfeit.

In June, in an unfortunate hooch tragedy (hooch is another word for moonshine – or illicit liquor), more than 100 people lost their lives in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Following the incident, a police raid raised concerns that the state excise policy was inadequate and needed reviewing, especially in relation to the use of tax stamps as an important anti-counterfeiting tool.

In a March article published by the Tax Foundation, Ulrik Boesen, Senior Policy Analyst, Excise Taxes, at the foundation’s Center for State Tax Policy examined how US state lawmakers are considering increasing excise taxes on soft drinks to offset decreases in income tax.

In 2019, more than 25 people died in a single case of alcohol poisoning resulting from methanol-laced alcoholic drinks. Soon thereafter, the government closed over 10 establishments and seized 55,000 containers of the killer alcohol.

In its bid to generate excise revenue and disrupt the kind of spurious partnerships between manufacturers and transporters that have led to tragedies involving illicit liquor, the Punjab state government has adopted a slew of excise policy measures.