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Hingham woman shocked to learn the vodka she thought was handmade isn't, so she sues

Lynica Emanuello says she probably bought a bottle of Tito's Handmade Vodka every month for four years, but put a stop to that when she learned the "handmade" hooch was really mass produced in by what she calls "a highly-mechanized process that is devoid of human hands."

Naturally, she's seeking recompense - via a class-action lawsuit on behalf of every Massachusetts resident who's bought a bottle of Tito's in recent years, filed this week in US District Court in Boston.

That's more than $5 million worth of damages and penalties, according to her lawsuit, filed by Boston lawyer Erica Mirabella, who specializes in suing companies over allegedly fraudulent labeling, such as Utz, Proctor and Gamble, Coca Cola, Dole, Blue Diamond and Whole Foods.

The suit notes that Tito's labels say it's "Crafted in an Old Fashioned
Pot Still by America’s Original Microdistillery." In fact, the suit charges:

Tito’s is made, manufactured, and produced in “massive buildings containing ten floor-to-ceiling stills and bottling 500 cases an hour” using automated machinery. The process of manufacturing Tito’s is devoid of the caring touch of human hands. The neutral grain spirit that forms the basis of the Tito’s product is produced in an industrial factory on a massive scale. These facts belie defendant’s claims that Tito’s is "Handmade" and "Crafted in an Old Fashioned Pot Still."

The lawsuit says Tito's drinkers in Massachusetts will be "irreparably harmed" unless the company stops advertising its vodka as tenderly made by actual people and pays up for its past alleged mislabeling.

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Comments

I wouldn't mind it if companies cut the crap when labeling their goods. That way, people could cut the crap with such lawsuits .

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Yea! If you live in Hingham , but are not satisfied with the size of your house, you can easily upgrade to a much bigger house in Duxbury, the catch... requires a little work involved, first, you have to choose a product from a major corporation, read the label, example, applejuice if label says that the applejuice is very nutritional for your health, and one day you develop diabetes and doctor will tell you its caused by applejuice consuption, you may have a case..

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You say it as though punishing companies for lying was a bad thing.

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Let's not give companies an out if they try to make their labeling as deceptive as possible even if there is no physical harm to come of it.

Tito, like countless other companies, is trying to market their product as something it isn't. Vodka is vodka so she's no worse off due to this attempt to mislead but that shouldn't make it acceptable.

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how stereotypically hingham of her

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...she'll be complaining about the font on a street sign. Oh, wait a minute.....

Such a stereotypical comment from a city boy.

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As someone raised in Hingham, with family there, who has lived in "the city" for quite sometime now this is one of the most Hingham things you could do.

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Esq. Mirabella, please contact me ASAP!

I have a hunch the bread at Au Bon Pain, is not, in fact, artisanal!

Let's go blow some minds!

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au bon pain is surprisingly pretty "whole food" based, compared to the chemical warfare that panera bread sells. compare the ingredients lists, I was surprised. go au bon pain i guess.

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but most commercial product that is advertised as "hand made" and/or "home made" is most likely not. It is amusing that she really (?) believed that Tito's employed a group of old world vodka artisans crafting the stuff by hand.

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Why make fun of people fighting the good fight against false advertising? If Tito's vaguely advertised their booze as "handmade" then there would be no case, but their folksy marketing is way too specific. "It’s made in small batches in an old fashioned pot still by Tito Beveridge (actual name)."

http://www.titosvodka.com/our-vodka/

If Apple advertised that every iPhone was handcrafted in Steve's garage, they'd deserve getting their butts kicked in court too, and I wouldn't care what plaintiff or lawyer gets it done.

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I hate to break it to her... but most commercial product that is advertised as "hand made" and/or "home made" is most likely not.

Then, umm... the people selling such products could easily avoid the expense and inconvenience of litigation by simply, umm.. not lying about what they're selling, amiright?

It is amusing that she really (?) believed that Tito's employed a group of old world vodka artisans crafting the stuff by hand.

I think it's a reasonable expectation in a first-world country with consumer protection laws in place, that products that are widely distributed through normal commercial channels actually contain what the label says they contain, and that products whose labels contain lies will be kept off the market.

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tito's is good vodka, this person does not represent me!

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tito's is good vodka, this person does not represent me!

I don't think whether or not the vodka is good has any bearing on the litigation, which is about the lies on the label, not about what the vodka tastes like.

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me, i care

i thought that was implied in my post

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just crushing. I always trust a guy named Tito when buying a used car.

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"Tito's Homemade Vodka" sounds like an invitation for a monumental hangover the next morning...

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Actually, for those with gluten issues Tito's is consistently available and wheat free.

Cold River is even better and is distilled on a much smaller scale, though.

I believe Titos did honestly start out as something Tito made at home - he just expanded his enterprise.

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is not made from yellow corn hulled between the thighs of Austin hipster virgins."

I don't have much use for vodka outside of the occasional homemade Bloody, brunch hooch-and-juice eye-opener (Greyhounds and Screwdrivers are actually nice on the early side of a Sunday noon if the juice is fresh-squeezed), and freezer-chilled shots with my Urkrainian buddy, followed by a chomp of a good dill pickle.

Tito's isn't bad by the standards of the sad, huckster-dominated vodka genre -- at least they're not swindling you with fancy packaging and national advertising that you pay a big bump for, like so many so-called super-premium brands (looking at you, Goose, Chopin, Belvedere, etc.) --- but I find it oddly sweet on its own.

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"The process of manufacturing Tito’s is devoid of the caring touch of human hands."

Caring or not, I don't think anybody wants someone else's hands sloshin' about in their vodka.

(...and for her next trick, Erica Mirabella sues The Cheesecake Factory on the grounds that it isn't a factory.)

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Budweiser beer. I just learned that Budweiser isn't a real King. I feel harmed and I want whats rightfully mine.

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like Champagne.

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Miller doesn't say it tastes like champagne - Itales an analogy that it is the "champagne of beer" - ie it is the creme de la creme. Same thing with the Budweiser comment. Budweiser is not saying it is made by a Kimg.
However Titos says it is made in "small batches" in an old fashioned still.
Personally sounds trivial but when you are choosing whT to buy/drink/eat the labels should be accurate. I stopped buying orange juice a couple year ago - that label "freshly squeezed" means it could have been done 6 months ago when it was picked, then put into a vat where it is pasteurized (which ends up removing a bunch of the flavor) and it is stored. when it is ready to be shipped flavor is added back into it and then it is put in cartons, dated and shipped off to your grocery store. So yes that orange juice ws freshly squeezed at one time.

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"Untouched by Human Hands"

There were products which were specifically marketed as "untouched by human hands", implying that they were sterile and sanitary and free from diseases that those product packing humans might carry!

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How does a customer buying the product harm them?

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Assuming you are asking, "How is the customer harmed?" that's exactly the right question.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fraudulent_misrepresentation

Under contract law, a plaintiff can recover against a defendant on the grounds of fraudulent misrepresentation if (1) a representation was made; (2) that was false; (3) that when made, the representation was known to be false or made recklessly without knowledge of its truth; (4) that it was made with the intention that the plaintiff rely on it; (5) that the plaintiff did rely on it; and (6) that the plaintiff suffered damages as a result

In this case, the customer expected to exchange $30 for a bottle of handmade vodka. After the exchange, the customer is out $30, but is not in possession of the promised bottle of handmade vodka, but is in possession of something else.

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Why do people pay and arm an a leg for this swill? Vodka is basically watered down alcohol. It is the most basic of hard liquors, requires little effort to produce. By comparison, whiskies and brandies (aged) are far more complex. I drink vodka on occasion. I don't hate it. But these fancy ass vodkas, and people who swear by them and fork over big $, make me laugh. And to make matters worse, most just mix it with soda or juice. For shit's sake, stop throwing your $ away people.

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Thanks for the trip back to junior high! I loved the Jerky Boys.

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Sue you, sue me, sue everybody!

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IMAGE(http://d22zlbw5ff7yk5.cloudfront.net/images/stash-1-50ca9087a81d1.jpeg)

False advertising and snake oil products should be taken to the legal mat. It gives these A-holes an unfair competitive advantage by lying through their teeth, and the lack of enforcement creates bad incentives for others to enter the game theory spiral of suck.

Infomercials and late night TV advertising have been getting away with it for a while now; it's become very prevalent. Glad to see some are fighting the good fight to have the laws enforced, and making sure that companies are held to their claims.

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The Austin American-Statesman reported on a similar suit last fall, got some quotes from the brand's founder, Tito Beveridge (yes, that's his name).

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Dang, guess I drink slow.

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that's 2 drinks twice a week if you're by yourself, or one dinner party with 8 friends each having 2 drinks over the course of the night. Not exactly binge drinking territory, IMHO.

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What people seem to be missing, here, is the basic concept.

We want marketers of products not to lie to us. Our regulatory agencies are supposed to enforce this, but they often don't. Hence the opportunity for law firms like this to step in. Strikes me as a complete win-win: Companies making false claims lose money (and other companies are discouraged from making false claims; the public interest is served, and a law firm who has found a niche pursuing these suits makes good money doing so. There are no losers here.

You can't just sue someone for making false claims, however, because you need to have legal standing: you need to have been injured by the false claim. Being induced to buy a product that you wouldn't otherwise have bought is injury, and so these lawsuits always need a plaintiff who says, "I bought it because the label said 'handmade'; when i found out it wasn't actually handmade, I realized I had been ripped off." That creates standing, and a basis to sue.

The plaintiffs in these suits aren't idiots; they're playing an assigned role.

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Today's market is rife with "craft beers", "small batch whiskeys", and "handmade items". It's the Age of Etsy, where anyone at home with a little effort can make something at home and sell it to everyone online. Get enough of a following and you can start considering how to distribute it to a wider and wider audience. This *is* how Beveridge got to where he is today and nobody's begrudging him that.

However, at a point, you have to stop calling it your "handmade" booze and claiming it's "made in a copper still" even if it still tastes the same or that's just how you've come to be known. You just change the language slightly like "same great tasting..." or "flavors developed just as it was 20 years ago..." where you can claim that you cook it differently due to the practicalities of mass production but you still develop new ideas "in the old still" (as Tito's, Sam Adams, etc. does).

For some reason, booze bottles have gotten away with distracting/ignoring reality for quite some time. From claiming their origin story being all about their farm (when they buy their base from a giant factory in Canada) to showing pictures of the Rockies, when their brew is mostly corn from Kansas. Tito's is one that has basically stuck its thumb in peoples' eye when it comes to how "homemade" it is...and it's just not at all any more. But I can totally understand how someone could honestly be confused by it since if you have no idea how big the company actually is, then it looks no different on the shelf than "handmade" Bully Boy which only has a reach of New England and is based right here in Boston (Tito's is in Texas and reaches the entire US).

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What is the cut off in still size to be an "old fashioned pot still"? Who is qualified to make such a determination? If the still is handmade (meaning hands were used in the making of the still), who is to say the vodka is not then handmade by extension? What is handmade? No spoons allowed? You need to stir the batch with your bare hands?

You are all arguing if the lie caused pain, but I do not see anything that has proven it is in fact a lie or even misleading. If you say common sense I swear to God I hope someone punches you in the face today. There is no common sense about the lawsuit in the first place.

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What is the cut off in still size to be an "old fashioned pot still"? Who is qualified to make such a determination?... who is to say the vodka is not then handmade by extension?

You know what would be awesome? What would be awesome would be if there were some sort of officially recognized mechanism, perhaps administered by the government or some other neutral party, in which someone who felt like he or she had been lied to or cheated in a commercial transaction could make the argument, and then the other party could make his or her arguments in his or her defense, and then maybe you could get experts to weigh in on one side or the other, and then the neutral third party could decide whether or not the claim had merit. Wouldn't that be cool?

but I do not see anything that has proven it is in fact a lie or even misleading

umm, no, of course you haven't seen anything that proves it is a lie, because the trial hasn't happened yet and the evidence has not yet been presented.

There is no common sense about the lawsuit in the first place.

well, there's this claim : "It’s made in small batches in an old fashioned pot still."

Either that statement is true, for some sort of reasonable (as determined by the court) definition of "small" and "old fashioned" and for some standard beverage industry technical definition of "pot still." or it's false.

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