Avoiding Corn in Canada
Avoiding Corn in CanadaThere are no laws requiring ingredient listings on alcoholic beverages in Canada (or the USA). With a few exceptions (below), most alcoholic beverages contain corn syrup. The corn syrup is used both to boost the alcohol content during the fermentation process and/or to sweeten the finished product. This is especially true of beer, coolers, and drinks for mixing. Also, bourbon is made exclusively from corn! Then there's the special case of vodka, which is made from just about anything. Vodka is distilled and purified to the extent that even if it were made from corn, the amount of corn proteins, etc. in the finished product is truly negligible.
Generally corn-free alcoholic beveragesAlthough alcoholic beverages are not required to list their ingredients, Canada does regulate what can go into a number of them. The composition of these alcoholic beverages is described in the part of the Canadian Food and Drug Regulations called “Division 2. Alcoholic beverages,” i.e. section B.02.
In general, premium alcoholic beverages are made exclusively from one specific type of plant according to traditional recipes. They will generally not contain corn. However, it is sometimes difficult to find out whether corn products may be present in some alcoholic beverages unique to particular regions of the world, since the laws about what goes into them are set by the countries where they are made. For instance, Mexico regulates the contents of tequila. Since I don't know my way around the Mexican legal system, I can't vouch for whether it is corn-free (though the one shot of tequila I had in my life did not do me any harm). However, just because an alcoholic beverage has its contents regulated by the Canadian government does not mean that it is corn-free, as I explain in the list below. In addition, all other alcoholic beverages I have not listed below, including gin, are permitted to contain corn syrup.
NEW! Americans are lobbying their government to start putting nutrition and ingredient labels on alcoholic beverages. Good luck to them and let's hope that Canadians achieve what they're trying to do in the USA on this front.
The vast majority of beer sold in Canada and the USA contains corn, though Guinness seems to be OK. (If you've ever wondered what ingredients are allowed to go in Canadian beer, see our beer ingredient laws, section B.02.130 (alternative link here)). However, there is still hope for corn-sensitive beer-lovers out there. Beer brewed in Germany NEVER contains corn. Thanks to the Bavarian Purity Act of 1516, German beer ingredients are limited to barley, hops, water and yeast. Many microbrewries worldwide are proud to advertise that they obey the Bavarian Purity Act. All such beers are corn-free. A number of German breweries, such as Beck's, even make non-alcoholic, beerlike beverages that do not contain corn. (These are sold at grocery stores).
News flash! (or not, at least, if you love beer) – the Ontario Corn Producers' Association put out a flyer in 2008 called “A Day in the Life of Corn” that proudly states,
Demand for bland, less filling beer, especially in the U. S., has permitted use of more refined carbohydrate sources of two types: a) dry adjuncts, primarily dry milled corn grits, broken rice [and] refined corn starch, and more recently, dextrose. B) [sic] Liquid adjuncts, namely corn syrups.
I don't think it can get much more obvious than this.
