WASHINGTON -- The maker of Cisco, a flavored wine product with high alcohol content, has agreed to stop advertising the drink as a low- alcohol, single-serving drink, the government announced Tuesday.
One bottle of the fruit-flavored Cisco, a fortified wine that is 20 percent alcohol and dubbed by some as 'liquid crack,' contains the equivalent of five shots of 80-proof vodka. Health experts said if a 100-pound person drank two bottles of Cisco in one hour they could die of acute alcohol poisoning.
Cisco's action comes as part of a consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, which had issued a complaint against the maker of Cisco, Canandaigua Wine Co. of upstate New York.
The FTC's complaint charged that the color and shape of the Cisco bottle resembles that of other single-serving beverages with less than 7 percent alcohol, such as wine coolers, and that the colors and flavors in which Cisco comes are similar to the colors and flavors of many wine coolers.
In January, U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello told a news conference that Cisco's packaging 'looks like a wine cooler. It smells like a wine cooler. But it isn't.'
The FTC said Novello approved of the consent agreement as an effort to end what she called 'nationwide reports of alcohol poisoning among teenagers.'
At that time, a coalition of medical and consumer groups released a study that said Cisco was responsible for 10 of the 15 cases of acute alcohol intoxication handled by the Children's National Medical Center in Washington since March 1990.
The FTC said: 'The packaging, marketing and advertising of Cisco represent that it is a low-alcohol product that consumers can drink in quantities similar to other low-alcohol products without increased risk of injury.'
'In fact ... these representations are deceptive because Cisco is neither a wine cooler nor a low-alcohol, single serving beverage, but rather a 20 percent alcohol product that is three to five times as potent as low-alcohol beverages,' the FTC said.
Under the agreement, Canandaigua would be prohibited from representing that Cisco is a low-alcohol product, from implying that a bottle of Cisco constitutes a single serving and from encouraging retailers to display Cisco next to low-alcohol products like wine coolers.
Last month, Canandaigua unveiled a new bottle shape and label design aimed at differentiating the beverage from wine coolers. The new bottle is made of dark green glass with a long slender neck and the label bears messages printed in 'bold graphics' that warn: 'This is not a wine cooler,' and on the bottle: 'This container serves 4 persons and is best served over ice,' the company said.
Canandaigua agreed to change the shape and glass color of the bottle for Cisco and to begin shipping the product in the new bottle and packaging after July 1, 1991, the FTC said.
A consent agreement is for settlement purposes only 'and does not constitute an admission by the company that it violated the law,' the FTC said.
