They Said the Tariff Was Gone. I Just Paid Five Figures.

From the Warehouse · June 1, 2026

A year ago, I wrote a post on this blog celebrating the end of the tariff on Scotch whisky. A federal court had just struck the tariffs down. I called it good news for whisky lovers and hit publish.

The relief lasted about a day. The tariff was reinstated on appeal, and when my shipment landed, I paid it anyway.

It's June 1, 2026, and I'm sitting in almost the same spot. Four weeks ago it was announced that the Scotch whisky tariff was gone. Last week my largest import ever cleared customs: 2,800+ bottles, five pallets of single cask Scotch from Scotland to our warehouse in Sterling, Virginia. Every line was charged the 10% duty.

Every headline in America says this tariff is gone. My customs broker says otherwise. The CBP form says otherwise. My bank account says otherwise.

A Year of Whiplash

If you haven't been following the Scotch whisky tariff saga, here is fourteen months compressed into a timeline that will make your head spin. The important thing to notice is how many times the same 10% duty has died and come back under a new name.

What "Removed" Actually Means

On April 30, President Trump announced he was removing "the tariffs and restrictions on whisky" in honor of the visiting King and Queen. He told reporters he "took all the restrictions off, so Scotland and Kentucky can start dealing again."

Every major outlet ran it as a done deal. CNBC. PBS. The Spirits Business. The Drinks Business. The Scotch Whisky Association and Scotland's First Minister both thanked the administration. The industry exhaled.

Here's what got less attention: an announcement is not a proclamation. There was no published effective date, no customs classification, and no guidance from the USTR or U.S. Customs and Border Protection telling brokers to stop collecting the 10% duty.

In plain English: the announcement was made. The paperwork was not. And customs brokers file based on paperwork, not press conferences.

I asked my broker about the April 30 announcement. The answer was one line. The tariff is in effect. No hedging, no "we're waiting for guidance," no timeline. Just: it's in effect.

He was right. As of today, June 1, 2026, it still is. I have the CBP Entry Summary to prove it.

What the Court Said, and Why It Doesn't Help Me

On May 7, the Court of International Trade ruled 2-1 that the Section 122 tariff was unlawful. The court found the statute didn't authorize what the administration used it for. Section 122 is meant for a specific kind of balance-of-payments emergency, and the proclamation stretched the authority well past what Congress granted.

That sounds like a win. It wasn't, at least not for me.

The injunction applied only to the three plaintiffs who brought the case: Burlap & Barrel, a spice company; Basic Fun, a toy company; and the State of Washington. If you weren't one of those three, the tariff still applies. The strange part is that the duty keeps getting collected from everyone while the government appeals, including from the very plaintiffs who won.

So as of today we have a tariff that the Supreme Court's reasoning already gutted once, that a trade court has now ruled unlawful a second time under a second statute, that was announced as gone, and that CBP is still collecting on every bottle of Scotch entering the country.

What a Five-Figure Tariff Means to a Small Importer

For a multinational, $XX,XXX (a five-figure sum I'd rather not print in full) is a rounding error on a Tuesday. For an independent bottler importing single cask Scotch, it's a different conversation.

That money wasn't supposed to be a tariff at all. When the removal was announced on April 30, I had plans for it: more casks, new releases, the things that keep an independent bottler moving. Instead it went to CBP.

When you're a large company, you have legal teams tracking regulatory changes in real time and lobbyists in Washington before policy is even written. When you're me, you find out the tariff is still in effect when your broker files the entry and the charge lands.

So I'll absorb this cost and have faith a refund comes back to The Whiskey Lab. I'm not putting this on our customers. I'm not passing a tax that a court has ruled illegal, and that was announced as removed, onto the people who trust us to bring these bottles in. That's a bet I'm willing to make, and I'm betting we get it back.

The Retroactive Question

Here's what I'm actually watching, because there are two separate refund stories and they're easy to confuse.

The first is the old IEEPA tariff, the one in place from April 2025 until February 2026. The Supreme Court struck it down, and CBP has opened a process for importers to claim those duties back. Estimates of what the government may owe across all importers run into the tens of billions.

The second is the Section 122 tariff, the one I just paid. A court ruled it unlawful on May 7, but collection continues while the government appeals. Those dollars only come back if the appeal fails and the relief is widened beyond the three plaintiffs.

Then there's the Scotch-specific question sitting on top of both. If the April 30 removal is ever written into an actual proclamation, what's its effective date?

Nobody can tell me which one applies. Not my broker, not the trade lawyers publishing analysis online, not the USTR. The announcement was made. The implementation wasn't. And importers like me are caught in the gap between a press conference and a regulatory filing.

What This Means for Whisky Prices

Every importer in the country is running the same calculation right now. Raise prices to cover the tariff, knowing it might be refunded? Hold prices and eat the cost, hoping for retroactive relief that may never come? Slow down imports and wait for clarity, which means less product on shelves?

If you've noticed Scotch prices creeping up over the past year, this is why. It isn't the distilleries. It isn't the retailers being greedy. It's a 10% tax applied at the border and passed through the entire supply chain. The importer pays it. The distributor marks up on top of it. The retailer marks up on top of that. By the time a bottle reaches a shelf, that 10% has compounded into a meaningfully higher price.

For a $120 bottle, that's $24 to $36 of increase that exists solely because of a tariff that was announced as removed, that a court says is illegal, and that CBP still collects.

Where We Go From Here

I'm not writing this to complain. I knew the tariff existed when I committed to this import. I planned around it. The shipment was too important to delay over a social media post, and I'm glad I didn't wait.

I'm writing it because the gap between announcement and implementation is the part of this story that doesn't get told. Trade publications report the announcement. Law firms publish the analysis. But nobody shows you the actual CBP form with "Section 122, 10% duty" printed on every line item, dated twenty-nine days after the removal was announced.

I can show you that, because I just lived it.

Let me be clear about where I stand. We're grateful the tariff on Scotch whisky is being removed. It's the right call for distillers, for small importers like us, and for every customer who loves this stuff. My only hope is that the policy now follows the statement. Actions speak louder than words, and the sooner the guidance is written down, the sooner businesses like mine can stop paying a tariff that everyone, finally, agrees should be gone.

And here's the part that is actually amazing. The whisky is here. Five pallets of single cask Scotch, cleared and soon to be sitting in our warehouse, tariff paid, ready to deliver. The tariff didn't change the plan. It just means I'm carrying a cost I'm confident we get back, so that the surprise lands exactly the way I wanted it to.

Here's what I'm watching over the next few weeks:

I'll update this post as it develops. If the tariff is officially removed and the refund comes through, I'll tell you. If it doesn't, I'll tell you that too.

Jay Roberts · June 1, 2026