TTB-Approved Flavors for Alcoholic Beverages
Whether you’re a winery, brewery, craft distillery, winemaker, or other wholesale company producing alcoholic beverages, navigating the system to get your drinks TTB approved can be a hurdle.
With over a century of experience in the food and beverage flavoring industry, we’re here to help you get your flavoring just right with our TTB approved, all-natural flavors and extracts—including tequila flavoring extracts, beer flavoring extracts, wine flavoring extracts, and much more.
What are TTB-Approved Flavors?
By law, flavors used in alcoholic beverages must be approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), and manufacturers must be able to disclose the composition of their flavors. All Bickford TTB approved flavors and extracts are available with complete documentation, including Flavor Ingredient Data (FID) sheets, upon request.
We are not an authority on TTB regulations or a comprehensive resource to ensure your beverage becomes TTB approved, but we can certainly help ensure your beverages have TTB approved flavors and extracts, and can help you determine how your ingredients may affect the labeling.
Check out the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau website for additional resources.
Have questions? We’re more than happy to assist you in any way we can: contact us.
Beverage Production: What Type of Alcoholic Beverage Are You Developing?
Hard cider—essentially fermented apple juice—has deep roots in U.S. history. It was the most accessible and cheapest drink in the 17th century, and was considered safer to drink than water.
When more European immigrants settled in the U.S. in the 1800’s, beer began to edge out cider in popularity. Today, both cider and beer have huge numbers of consumers—and they’re looking for a unique-tasting product.
Our cider and beer flavoring extract recommendations will make your beverages shine:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: National Geographic
Wine is an age-old beverage. According to world historians, the earliest vineyards popped up in the Middle East as far back as 9000 years ago!
The wine market today is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. alone. But your wine products could always benefit from a nudge toward innovation - especially with wine flavoring extracts.
Try our wine flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Wine Flavoring Extracts below.
Source: Wine Institute
Did you know? Nearly all juniper used in gin is picked wild, rather than cultivated.
Since gin’s primary flavor is natural and complex—the soft citrus and sweet pine of the juniper berry—any other flavor added to compliment or highlight nuances of this sophisticated flavor must be of the highest quality source.
Include our fragrant, delicious gin flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: Sip Smith
Most of the mass-produced, flavorless vodka we consume today is processed through the Coffey, or column still, method, in which the alcohol doesn’t stop moving through the system. It strips the alcohol of impurities (a good thing), but congeners that may pass on flavor are removed, too.
You may not know that vodka welcomes a wide-array of flavor extracts—especially fruity flavors—and we have an all-natural selection for you to choose from:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: Vine Pair
Whiskey gets its name from the Gaelic word uisge beatha, which means water of life.
As a whiskey distiller, consumers of your product aren’t just enjoying a fine, well-aged drink. Drinking a moderate amount of whisky has the potential to aid digestion and weight loss, prevent cancer and strokes, lower one’s risk of dementia, prevent diabetes, treat the common cold, and more.
Add a premium, all-natural flavor to your whisky and we have a hard time believing anyone could resist raising a glass and toasting to life and health.
Check out our whisky flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: Wide Open Country
While liqueurs are technically liquors because they are distilled spirits—usually featuring rum, whiskey, brandy, or another liquor as the base—we think they are a lot of fun with flavoring.
From chocolate to salted caramel to orange to raspberry (and don’t forget about cream liqueurs), there are a wide range of options for flavor development.
Go in a fruity direction with our liqueur flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: The Spruce Eats
As the world’s first spirit—manufactured and distilled during the 1620’s in the Caribbean—rum remains a well-loved beverage. While many only think of one kind of rum, there are many different varieties, including light, gold, dark, navy, black, and aged.
When developing flavoring, consider that light rums have a soft, sweet taste while rich rums boast a more aromatic flavor profile with notes of licorice and molasses.
Try our rum flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: Metro
Did you think to turn to tequila—a plant-based drink that is made from the blue agave or agave tequilana Weber—during this pandemic? During the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, patients were told to drink tequila with lime and salt to ease their flu symptoms.
Tequila can take 8-12 years before it’s ready to be harvested. Given all that effort, only all-natural tequila flavoring extracts will truly create a premium end product.
The below tequila flavor recommendations can add a delightful citrus edge to your product.
See all TTB-Approved Tequila Flavoring Extracts below.
Source: BahamaBreeze
For as much as we love pouring our own drinks, pre-mixed and ready to drink cocktails win over consumers, too. The ‘RTD’ cocktail market has exploded with variety and flavor, but make no mistake about it: consumers crave more variety and higher-quality flavors.
Try out our fruit-forward RTD cocktail flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Moonshine’s illegal beginnings took root during the Civil War, when people started making alcohol themselves because the tax on alcohol shot up. Today, moonshine has entered the mainstream and comes in many flavors. But there’s always room for more options and a better-quality product!
Try our moonshine flavor recommendations:
See all TTB-Approved Flavors below.
Source: Spoon University
Bickford’s TTB-Approved Natural Flavors
What Beverages Need to Be TTB-Approved?
If you’re a first-time maker or long-standing beverage producer looking to diversify your beverage options, keep in mind that only alcoholic beverages need to be TTB approved.
It’s important to apply for a permit and wait for approval before brewing or distilling to remain in compliance with TTB regulations. Non-alcoholic flavored beverages are not required to be TTB approved, but still need to comply with industry standards and labeling requirements.
What additional TTB approved flavor questions can we assist you with? Get in touch with us today: