Tariffs may create a turnabout in how you drink. But what will the impact be at your local tavern?
Want like my friend to have a crown double, oh but wait a minute, you might have to pay a rate almost twice as high, over and above the drink being a double to start with, if it comes from a country that by chance has royalty …
If running a bar, being newly creative is now more important than ever. We need what is made local and regional, because what is international is now being basically shut off, pricewise. So concerning what’s in our country, and even county, with its new tariffs there and just beyond, whether brewery and winery, or even liquor amidst your comfort food as in what you see at or behind the bar, on those smaller counters, turn to what’s offered and made just down the street, as these things might be your answer.
You may have to pay big bucks at the tavern to tap into say, beer from Germany or wine from France or tequila and ethnic beers from Mexico or whiskey from Canada, so what is made right here in western Wisconsin, craft is what it is called, is indeed the key.
An example, this time from the southeast of the U.S., is a craft-like and personally run brewery whose signature beer will now require a price hike for a six pack from $12.99 to $18.99. Tariffs will do that to you, because the company gets its telltale malt ingredient from Canada — and they can’t find it anywhere stateside — and bottle caps, not 16 ounce cans, from Mexico. Any trademark hops from Germany might be even more expensive to import. Could it be jimmy-rigged so these lids are put on somewhere in the 48 — not 50 — states? Still, there are both pesky supply chain issues and the uncertainty they bring … (The named brewery has already had to let go two stalwart workers.)
So hops at Easter, in wine or beer, might be something that will have to wait until at least the next four Easters to be affordable. So bunny up.
Wine snobs as well as beer snobs are caught in the mix. But there probably will be one less option … In order to “finish off” their wine making, one California brand from the vine says they have to look beyond China, where the tariffs affecting the U.S. are now more than half, and the already thin profit margin may force them to close the restaurant. And there already have been layoffs at their company. So do we make being a wine snob criminal?
To reverse it, such successes will require innovation to fill the tap gap. Also thinking outside the box and changing up how people do things — qualities that I can tell you as an ad salesperson are in very short supply already with most tunnel-vision businesses.
And I as a music writer have said it: We don’t need so many dozens of slightly-different-than-the-other-guy craft brews or the coolest new form of wine remakes. But their place has been staken in the ground of market growth.
So if the intro example, of a six pack of beer going up by basically a buck a bottle, holds any weight all, the prognostications of all the media talking heads should be clear when clarified, as it is largely a simple numbers game of math: What goes up on a $10 purchase will assuredly cost you $1 more.
George Thorogood on “one bourbon, one scotch and one beer.” If top shelf, better have a hundred dollar bill in your pocket. And the tip Lemmy from Motorhead so famously gave in multiples at one gig: Better get out some more.
Back on Tuesday, losing Republican candidate Brad Schimel was civil — although some of his followers were quick to question the result — and in short order at his small venue took to the stage to play with his band. I will give him a great review for that overture, although I was not onhand being from the northwest segment of the state to see if the group had clarity in their sound — a sort of transparency. It was not reported if he was low-key while in the rhythm section, wailed on guitar in a sorta out-there way, or went on-stage with vocals and could interject with the crowd. Trumpets still blaring?
And why do all these staid Republicans play in a band? It could make them more user-friendly. Or populist? What is their lyrical content? In any case, thanks for being real.
When that top shelf comes tumbling down as we’re already seeing, and I’ll call it, the weight of Trump’s empire is falling under its own greatly concentrated … weight. Does someone give him a pardon?
So when you come to the world of tariffs, think big in an attempt to take it back in that Trump prized ruler of industry territory for workers, and great if we can? Or if the matter concerns these thoughts? There is a dichotomy. Concerning our tariff territory. Expanding? On it? In more ways than one?
So when it comes to Musk constantly trying as a poser to adjust his Cheesehead hat, and chainsaw can’t save this comedic bit, Here’s the Canada response, before setting retaliatory tariffs themselves: A tariff on us Canadians is a tax on Americans, the far northland governor type said. And if you want it’s whiskey, you might now be talking triple digits. So just buy the generic-we-have-every-liquor-genre Phillips brand. Even that’s far from single digits these days.
Here is the reply of an old rock band, biting the hand that feeds them in a very-much needed these days and very sarcastic way, with their song On The Cover of the Rolling Stone: We sing about beauty and we sing about truth, at 10,000 dollars a show.
That’s it? That figure won’t even buy you a door at a standard rate you pay for an American/Canadian car these days.
The same number was referenced, by a bar owner’s wife, like in the old Tool song and its redo by a tribute band, which that friend of mine was just dying to see with me at the old Dibbo’s, 10,000 Days. To the digit. And the instance was about that many days ago.
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