Brief published on setting tax treatment of cooking alcohols

HM Customs & Revenue has published a brief setting out the tax treatment of certain cooking alcohols following legal clarification in the First-tier Tribunal decision in Gourmet Classic Limited v HMRC made on 25 February 2025.

These cooking alcohols are alcoholic products to which salt, or a combination of seasonings have been added making the product unsuitable for consumption as a beverage. These products usually contain at least 5 grams of salt per litre of product.

Who needs to read this

You should read this if you are:

• a producer of cooking alcohols in the UK
• an authorised warehousekeeper
• an owner of goods held in an excise warehouse
• importing cooking alcohols
• a manufacturer of food which uses cooking alcohols

For Northern Ireland only, you should read this if you are a:

• registered consignee
• temporary registered consignee
• registered commercial importer
• commercial importer
• tax representative

Background

A legal case has made clear the position of certain cooking alcohols to which salt, or a combination of seasonings have been added to make the product unsuitable for consumption as a beverage. The case decided that these cooking alcohols are food, and as such an eligible article for the purposes of the Alcoholic Ingredients Relief (AIR) scheme. The scheme provides for the repayment of duty on alcohol in foods containing no more than 5 litres of alcohol per 100kg of the final product.

HMRC policy

All relevant cooking alcohols of a strength of 5% alcohol by volume (ABV) or less are treated as eligible articles and so may qualify for repayment of duty under the AIR scheme.

For businesses that import these cooking alcohols into the UK, you will not need to account for, or pay alcohol duty, on these products if they have an ABV of 5% or less. For businesses that produce qualifying cooking alcohols in the UK, using duty suspended alcohol in an excise warehouse, no duty will be payable when they leave your warehouse.

If qualifying cooking alcohols are produced in the UK from duty paid alcohol, then that duty can be claimed back under the AIR scheme.

Businesses will still need to use existing customs processes to export and import cooking alcohols. However, alcohol duty will not need to be charged on those products with 5% ABV or less.

Cooking alcohols with an alcoholic strength greater than 5% ABV do not qualify as being an allowed product for the AIR scheme and so are chargeable with alcohol duty. If these stronger cooking alcohols are later used in the manufacture of an eligible article for the purposes of the AIR scheme, the duty paid can be reclaimed provided the scheme rules are complied with.

Information on how to claim duty back on eligible articles is set out in Alcoholic Ingredients Relief (Excise Notice 41).

Alcohol Duty paid on the alcoholic product used in cooking alcohols can only be claimed back once, and each claim needs evidence to support the request.