The two lines

If you cross it

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated October 2026

On this page5

Two different answers Crossing the juice line Crossing the alcohol line Deciding on purpose References

What actually happens, for each of the two thresholds, and what the honest responses are.

Two different answers

Crossing the juice line is mostly a change in what you must do.

Crossing the alcohol line is a change in what you are.

Crossing the juice line

You have started distributing to other businesses, so the retail exemption no longer applies and HACCP does.

That means a hazard analysis, a validated 5-log step with critical limits, monitoring, corrective actions, verification and records, plus trained personnel.

Which is a project of weeks and a real ongoing discipline, and it is achievable by a small producer.

The alternative is to stay direct-to-consumer deliberately and say so when the café asks, which is a legitimate business decision rather than a failure.

Crossing the alcohol line

The product is an alcohol beverage. Production must be on premises qualified by TTB under the Internal Revenue Code, a formula must be filed before production, excise tax applies, and the container must carry the ABLA health warning statement.

For a fermented drink at or above 0.5 percent that means qualifying as a brewer under 27 CFR part 25.

State alcohol licensing sits on top, and it is a separate and frequently harder process.

And there is a retail consequence: an alcohol beverage cannot be sold in the places a soft drink can. The shelf you were on is not available to you.

Deciding on purpose

Both lines are better crossed deliberately than discovered.

A producer who decides to become a brewer, files a formula and prices in the excise tax has a business. A producer whose product tested at 0.7 percent after a warm summer has a recall and a conversation with an agency.

So the decision to make is which side you intend to be on, and then build the process, the package and the cold chain to hold it, and test the worst case rather than the best one.

References

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. General TTB Requirements for Kombucha. Production on premises qualified under the Internal Revenue Code, compliance with labeling, formula and tax requirements, and the health warning statement required by the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act of 1988. ttb.gov

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Requirements for Kombucha Classified as Beer. Fermented beverages at or above 0.5 percent ABV are classified as beer for tax purposes; a brewer must qualify under 27 CFR part 25 and file a formula before production. ttb.gov

21 CFR Part 120, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems for juice. Covered processors must achieve a 5-log reduction in the pertinent pathogen. ecfr.gov

US Food and Drug Administration. Exemptions from the Warning Label Requirement for Juice. A retail establishment selling juice directly to consumers and not distributing to other businesses is exempt from the HACCP rule, and untreated juice must still carry the warning statement. fda.gov

Written from the federal regulation and agency guidance named on each page, not from a laboratory. Whether a particular product meets a pathogen reduction requirement, and what its alcohol content actually is, are measurements about your product, and this is not those measurements.