Ready to drink cocktails (RTD) can be classified as beer, wine, or alcohol depending on their ABV:
- RTD cocktails with beer/malt as an alcohol base and an alcohol content by weight below 14.5% are classified as
beer.
- RTD cocktails with wine as an alcohol base and an alcohol content by volume up to 21% are classified as
wine.
- RTD cocktails with alcoholic liquor as an alcohol base
regardless of alcohol content are classified as
liquor.
S.C. Code of Laws Title 61, Chapter 4 – Beer, Ale, Porter, and Wine makes no mention of cocktails but does provide some guidance of what types of beverages are regulated as beer and wine in S.C. Code Ann. §61-4-10 as follows:
-
all beers, ales, porters, and other similar malt or fermented beverages containing not in excess of five percent of alcohol by weight;
-
all beers, ales, porters, and other
similar malt or fermented beverages containing more than five percent but less than fourteen percent of alcohol by weight that are manufactured, distributed, or sold in containers of six and one-half ounces or more or the metric equivalent; and
-
all wines containing not in excess of twenty-one percent of alcohol by volume.
S.C. Code of Laws Title 61, Chapter 6 – Alcoholic Beverage Control Act makes no mention of cocktails but does provide some guidance of what types of beverages are regulated as alcoholic liquors in S.C. Code Ann. §61-6-20 as follows:
"Alcoholic liquors" or "alcoholic beverages"
means any spirituous malt, vinous, fermented, brewed (whether lager or rice beer), or other liquors or a compound or mixture of them, including, but not limited to, a powdered or crystalline alcohol,
by whatever name called or known, which contains alcohol and is used as a beverage for human consumption
S.C. law does not recognize RTD cocktails as a cocktail or unique category of alcohol. RTD cocktails are classified by their alcohol base regardless of alcohol content. RTD cocktails with a beer/malt base are beer, those with a wine base are wine, and those with an alcoholic liquor base are liquor.
RTD cocktails with an alcohol base of wine and an alcohol content by volume greater than 16.5% and up to 21% must be sold in licensed retail liquor stores or establishments licensed to sell liquor by the drink per S.C. Code Ann. §61-4-770.