On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:57:50 -0700 (PDT), pat wrote:

> blake murphy wrote:
>>i just looked at a half-dozen random items in my fridge and
>>they had both imperial and metric units on them.
>
> Yes. If you pick up a prepacked product at random in a US supermarket,
> it is likely to be covered by the FPLA. The FPLA requires both non-
> metric and metric.
>
> Beer is one of the products outside the scope of the FPLA. But there
> is no shortage of laws. Beer is covered by another law that requires
> non-metric units. The manufacturer has a choice to use metric units
> and some do.
>
>>(liquor and wine seem to be exclusively labeled in liters, but god knows the rationale for that.)
>
> It isn't just god that knows, you'll know it when you finish reading
> this post. Federal law mandates metric units for liquor/wine. The
> manufacturer has a choice to use non-metric units but few do.

well, yes, i figured it was the law. but what is the rationale behind the
law? usually you can figure out who profits by it, but in this case it's
opaque to me.

your pal,
blake