Dumbass Liquor Laws

I often think that someone could devote an entire blog to the topic of Stupid Liquor Laws, said laws being a good indicator of this country's screwball attitudes toward alcohol. (Well, okay, now that I think about it, Jay comes pretty close to doing just that.)

Anyway, file this under Stupid Liquor Laws: Today's Wall Street Journal features a piece about a guy named Ralph Erenzo. (I can't provide a link to the piece because the WSJ doesn't provide free content.) Erenzo lives in upstate New York, a mostly rural area with a mostly depressed economy. He's doing his bit for creating a locally based, "green" economy by operating a small distillery, where he makes vodka, bourbon, rye, rum, and other spirits. He hires local labor, and relies as much as possible on local crops.

So what's the problem? New York laws forbid him from selling his stuff directly to customers. So he can't operate a California-type tasting room where you can sip the goods and then buy a case. A hundred people a day might drive by during summer tourist season, but they can't buy his goods.

Erenzo and his business partner lobbied the state legislature to change the law, much as micro-brewers did in California twenty-five years ago so that they could operate brewpubs and sell their beer to consumers. After four years of lobbying, the legislature finally passed and the governor finally signed a law that created a new category of liquor license.

So where's the dumbass part? The law requires such small distillers to use ONLY ingredients found in New York. Nothing else.

Sooooooooo, as the columnist at the Journal (Brendan Miniter) points out, that lets out rum (sugar cane doesn't grow in New York), and Erenzo uses Candian rye. Which means he can't sell the stuff direct to customers. So here's a guy who's trying to revive New York agriculture and support the local economy -- stymied by yet another example of dumbass liquor laws.

There's no moral to this story. Just more head-shaking and eye-rolling on my part. When when when are we Americans gonna grow up and stop infantilzing the making and consuming of alcohol?

Mothers for Social Drinking

Coming out of the cave for a moment to affirm my support for Mothers For Social Drinking. (Thanks to Jay Brooks for his blog about this. It's his entry for December 8, 2007.) You can read about the group here and here.

Damn the Neo-Prohibitionists. Full Speed Ahead -- For Common Sense

I support ANYONE who is willing to stand up to the lunacy of the neo-prohibitionists (who, in my opinion, aren't solving a problem. They ARE the problem.) Problem is, few people are willing to, especially politicians. That's one of the most unnerving of the similarities between the anti-saloon campaign of a century ago and the prohibitionist crusade of today: Most Americans have been so brainwashed on the subject that they toss reason out the window and react with jerking knees instead of open minds.

As a result, it's tough for the voices of reason to be heard. I've written several op-ed pieces on the topic -- but none have made it to print. When I submitted one of them to the Des Moines Register's "Iowa View" column a few years back, the editors took a grand total of five minutes to reject it by email. Too incendiary - -or so I assume. But hey, I've got this blog instead.

And once in awhile, someone does break through the barricade of unreason. There's a terrific piece by David Harsanyi in this month's online issue of Reason Magazine. Here's his website/blog. His new book is Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into A Nation of Children. Right on, brother, right on.

ADDENDUM (posted about an hour after the original entry): Yikes! Someone's webcrawler is busy. I'm already getting spam from the L*iber*tar*ians (to which I add asterisks only as a way to slow the google-crawl). So just to clarify: I am not a L*iber*tar*ian. Indeed, I think government is one of the best ideas human beings have had since they learned to walk upright. Laws are good. Taxes are fine. Dumbass ideas about "protecting" me from alcohol (and pate and butter and frency fries....) are not.

Thinking About Drinking -- and Kids

A few months back, an acquaintance told me that she was visiting New York City for the first time. She wondered about how to spend her time there, so I offered up some ideas. Walk through Central Park and its zoo. Enjoy the Met. And stop at Gramercy Tavern for a drink.

Gramercy boasts the nation's finest bar, I told her. The selection of imbibeables is astounding, and the bartenders possess an extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge about spirits, wine, and beer. (In my opinion, Gramercy's bar ought to be declared a national treasure.)

"Oh," she replied. "I'll be visiting a friend and her 14-year-old son. I wouldn't want to have a drink in front of him. It would set a bad example."

A mere heartbeat elapse before I seized the moment to spread my particular gospel. "That's precisely why you SHOULD stop at Gramercy for a drink. It's a civilized and pleasant setting. The bar is full of comfortable chairs and there will be all kinds of people there, including families, enjoying time together. You and your friend can enjoy a fabulous drink and chat with each other and her son. It'll be the perfect opportunity for him to get a positive message about alcohol and drinking."

I pointed out to her that right now, the only message the boy gets is a negative one, and mostly from his peers. They all know about alcohol, right? It's that evil, demonic, forbidden stuff that they have to lie and steal to obtain. And when they do have some, they slug it down without thinking about what it is, what they're doing, or the consequences. That's all that young man knows -- because no one wants to provide an alternative view.

But if she and her friend took him to Gramercy Tavern, he'd see and experience an alternative. He could sit down with two adults, watch them talk and enjoy their drinks, sharing each other's company and his. He'd see that adults can drink without getting drunk (there's no rule that says imbibing equals intoxication or that drinking inevitably leads to drunkenness). He'd experience a place where alcohol is treated with respect and dignity. He'd have the chance, in other words, to see the other side of alcohol, the one he's not learning with his buddies at school.

End of lecture. Spread the word.

Pondering the Fear of Beer

I've been mulling Garrett Oliver's op-ed piece "Don't Fear Big Beer. It appeared in the New York Times on October 19. Something about it bugged me, but it took me awhile to figure out what it was.

Don't get me wrong. It's a fine piece, full of nice sentiments about the joys and wonders of American craft beer. But I think Oliver veered down the wrong road when he asserted that "there is no future" in what he calls "industrial beer" (by which I assume he means anything made by Anheuser-Busch or Miller Brewing).

He argues that just as Americans are drinking better coffee than they did ten years ago, so, too, they're discovering fine craft beer.

Maybe. Maybe not. Here's another take on it: Something like 95% of the beer consumed in the U.S. is "industrial." Only about 5% comes from "craft" brewers. Moreover, that proportion -- 95% versus 5% -- has remained fairly constant for the past fifteen or so years.

So it seems to me that the more interesting question is: Why? We're twenty-five years into the "real" beer revolution. Why haven't craft beermakers grabbed more of the market? Why do the vast majority of Americans prefer "industrial" beer?

I think it's because we don't take beer seriously. And we don't take beer seriously because we don't respect alcohol. Instead, we Americans demonize alcohol. We teach children that it's bad and evil, and so of course as teenagers, they want to be naughty. They learn to drink in their cars at midnight, rather than at home with their families. And when we're not demonizing it, we're infantilizing the act of drinking (slugging down shots, giggling at the notion of having a beer with lunch, cackling at our friends when they can't stand upright). Then they grow up and either stop drinking completely or save drinking for "special" occasions. And then they pass on the lessons learned to their kids, and the process starts all over again.

Lesson being: beer is something to slug down randomly rather than a fine beverage to consume with fine food. Another lesson learned: beer's not worth much money, certainly not worth as much as, say, good mayonnaise or a pair of shoes. Craft beer is more expensive than its "industrial" counterpart; typically quite a bit more expensive. When Susan and Joe Consumer shop for beer, they're shopping by price. Given the choice between splurging on beer or shoes, they're gonna choose shoes.

Our only "grown-up" beverage is wine. We think of it as a fitting companion for fine dining. I think that's because, prior to about 1960, American wine production was about zilch and wine consumption was even lower. But then people began investing in vineyards and grapes in California and elsewhere. When it came time to marketing their wares, they were starting from scratch. Americans didn't know much about wine.Vintners were smart: they promoted wine as a sophisticated beverage best consumed with food, rather than as an alternative to canned beer or martinis.

Post-Prohibition brewers and distillers, in contrast, rebuilt old industries. But they had to market their wares to an audience that had been taught to disrespect and fear both. Indeed, if there's a single long-term impact of Prohibition (other than the "three-tier system" of distribution), it is that the Prohibitionists endowed alcohol with shame, and Americans have not been able to shake that inheritance.

Garrett Oliver asserts there's no future in industrial beer. I say there's not much future in craft beer until and unless we learn to respect alcohol in general and beer in particular. Only then will it seem normal to serve a fine stout with a fine roast beef. If craft brewers want to own the future, then they need to address the deeper issue of Americans's mistrust and misuse of alcohol. Until then, BUD is likely to remain a good investment in "the future."