It's illegal to sell cicada infused liquor in Illinois

 Alcohol and insects don't mix in Illinois.  

The Chicago Sun Times has the story:

Suburban brewery fined for selling cicada-infused Malört shot. Noon Whistle Brewing garnered headlines for selling the creative drink during the rare overlap of two cicada broods. But it turns out the shot wasn’t just disgusting — it was also illegal.  By  David Struett 

########

It's a good think the Illinois Liquor Control Commission wasn't running the IRB that approved Sandro Ambuehl's experiment that involved eating insects.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Does high pay equal "undue inducement"? An experiment by Sandro Ambuehl

Do Americans Drink Too Much? Politics and science in the debate over guidelines

 The WSJ has the story:

 Do Americans Drink Too Much? Alcohol Is Driving a Debate in Washington. Agencies, lobbyists and lawmakers are fighting over alcohol guidelines due to be updated next year By Kristina Peterson  and Julie Wernau 

"For nearly three decades, federal dietary guidelines have said it is safe for men to have two or fewer drinks a day, and for women to have one. That could change next year when the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments update recommendations that are part of federal dietary guidelines.

...

"Alcohol-industry officials and lobbyists have sent materials to government officials questioning the research methods of scientists drafting the recommendations. Alcohol companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers, more than a dozen of whom wrote to HHS and USDA on May 30 demanding more information on the process. 

“We don’t want arbitrary decision-making by these agencies that’s not rooted in real science,” said Rep. Andy Barr (R., Ky.), who is co-chair of the Bourbon Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The group was founded in 2009 by a lawmaker from Kentucky, which considers itself the birthplace of bourbon, and now has around 40 members. 

...

"Guiding Americans to drink less would be a blow to an industry that is already losing some customers. Younger generations have moved away from alcohol over health concerns. For the first time, the U.S. has more daily cannabis users than alcohol users. 

“If they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly they can kiss my ass,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said on Newsmax in August of the potential for lower alcohol-consumption guidelines. 

...

The six-member HHS panel includes three researchers whose studies have demonstrated that any amount of alcohol can be harmful: Tim Naimi, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research; Jürgen Rehm, senior scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health; and Kevin Shield, an independent scientist who runs a World Health Organization center on addiction."

Marijuana policy and use in the U.S., 1979-2022, by Jonathan Caulkins, in Addiction

 Here's a paper forthcoming in the journal Addiction:

Changes in self-reported cannabis use in the United States from 1979 to 2022, by Jonathan P. Caulkins, published online 22 May 2024, https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16519 

"Abstract

Background and aims: Multiple countries are considering revising cannabis policies. This study aimed to measure long-term trends in cannabis use in the United States and compare them with alcohol use.

Design and setting: Secondary analysis of United States general population survey data.

Participants: The national surveys had a total of 1 641 041 participants across 27 surveys from 1979 to 2022.

Measurements: Rates of use reported to the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health and its predecessors are described, as are trends in days of use reported. Four milepost years are contrasted: 1979 (first available data and end of relatively liberal policies of the 1970s), 1992 (end of 12 years of conservative Reagan-Bush era policies), 2008 (last year before the Justice Department signaled explicit federal non-interference with state-level legalizations) and 2022 (most recent data available).

Findings: Reported cannabis use declined to a nadir in 1992, with partial recovery through 2008, and substantial increases since then, particularly for measures of more intensive use. Between 2008 and 2022, the per capita rate of reporting past-year use increased by 120%, and days of use reported per capita increased by 218% (in absolute terms from the annual equivalent of 2.3 to 8.1 billion days per year). From 1992 to 2022, there was a 15-fold increase in the per capita rate of reporting daily or near daily use. Whereas the 1992 survey recorded 10 times as many daily or near daily alcohol as cannabis users (8.9 vs. 0.9 M), the 2022 survey, for the first time, recorded more daily and near daily users of cannabis than alcohol (17.7 vs. 14.7 M). Far more people drink, but high-frequency drinking is less common. In 2022, the median drinker reported drinking on 4–5 days in the past month, versus 15–16 days in the past month for cannabis. In 2022, past-month cannabis consumers were almost four times as likely to report daily or near daily use (42.3% vs. 10.9%) and 7.4 times more likely to report daily use (28.2% vs. 3.8%).

Conclusions: Long-term trends in cannabis use in the United States parallel corresponding changes in cannabis policy, with declines during periods of greater restriction and growth during periods of policy liberalization. A growing share of cannabis consumers report daily or near daily use, and their numbers now exceed the number of daily and near daily drinkers."

Daily and Near Daily (DND) use

...

"That is still not as high as for cigarettes. The 2022 NSDUH survey finds that 58.7% of PM ["Past Month"] cigarette smokers smoked ‘daily’—defined as ‘smoked one or more packs of cigarettes per day’ [8]. Therefore, there are more daily cigarette smokers than DND PM marijuana users (24.1 vs 17.7 million). 3 Still, patterns of marijuana consumption have shifted from being like alcohol to being closer to cigarette use. It is also no longer a young person's drug. In 2022, people 35 and older accounted for (slightly) more days of use than did those under the age of 35."

Prohibition, Moonshine, and the origins of stock car racing (NASCAR)

Prohibition (and before and after prohibition, high taxes) gave rise to black markets in alcohol. Some of the participants in those markets became folk heroes and later sports heroes, as smugglers became race car drivers, driving "stock" cars rather than cars that drew attention to themselves, eventually giving rise to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

Here's on old article from Smithsonian Magazine that gets right to the point:

How Moonshine Bootlegging Gave Rise to NASCAR. Rotgut and firewater are the founding fathers of our nation’s racing pastime.  by Jennifer Billock

"Even before Prohibition, erstwhile distillers were gathering in secret locations throughout rural areas in the south, brewing up homemade spirits to sell under the radar and away from alcohol taxes and bans. The drinks were made under the light of the moon, in hopes that no one would detect smoke rising from the stills and ultimately bust the operation—a practice that earned the booze its name “moonshine.”

"Moonshining dates back to the 1700s, when officials imposed taxes on liquor sales. Farmers and immigrants throughout the south took to making their own batches to sell for extra money, tax free, to counteract the effects of extreme poverty in the region. And with the introduction of Prohibition, production skyrocketed, creating a thriving black market business for secretly distilled hooch.

"Each hidden distillery needed to use runners—drivers in understated or otherwise ordinary-looking cars who could smuggle moonshine from the stills to thirsty customers across the region. On the outside, the cars looked “stock,” normal enough to avoid attention. But inside, both the mechanics of the cars and the drivers behind the wheel were far from ordinary. The vehicles were outfitted with heavy-duty shocks and springs, safeguarding the jars containing the hooch from breaking on bumpy mountain roads. The seats in the back were usually removed so more booze could fit. And high-powered engines gave the cars extra speed to outrun any cops and tax agents along the route. 

...

"From the 1930s on, once Prohibition had ended, demand for bootlegged alcohol waned and the runners found themselves with souped-up cars yet out of work—though they continued to take part in organized races. On December 14, 1947, one of these runners, Big Bill France, held a meeting with other drivers, car owners and mechanics to finally put in place some standardized rules for the races—thus NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, was born. The first official race was held two months later.

..."Arcadia Publishing released North Carolina Moonshine, a book about the Tar Heel State’s role in firewater history, covering everything from the NASCAR connection to local moonshining celebrities. In the book, the authors mention a secret garage hidden in the woods by the North Carolina-Virginia state line, which had opened in the 1930s and specialized in moonshine cars.

“This garage was operated for over 35 years by a shrewd, large and [purportedly] wily mechanic named Jelly Belly, who provided moonshine runners near and far with powerful cars that were almost untouchable,” authors Frank Stephenson Jr. and Barbara Nichols Mulder write."

*****

Moonshine whisky didn't completely disappear after the end of Prohibition, there are likely still some stills in the backcountry, to avoid taxes.  But while it's a tiny part of the whisky economy today, there are still auto sports heroes who got their start running the back roads with moonshine.  President Ronald Reagan pardoned one of them in 1985 for a 1956 conviction and prison sentence (followed by a storied racing career). The State of North Carolina commemorates the event here:

Junior Johnson Pardoned by Ronald Reagan

"On December 26, 1985, Robert Glen “Junior” Johnson received a  full and unconditional pardon from President Ronald Reagan for his 1956 conviction in federal court for moonshining.  Junior was caught firing up his father’s still and he became entangled in a barbed wire fence while trying to escape.  The conviction put Junior on a forced eleven-month, three-day hiatus in a federal penitentiary from his other career as a rising NASCAR star.

"Johnson, like many early NASCAR drivers, got his first high-speed driving experience in a souped-up automobile loaded with illegal white liquor.  He was a natural as a driver and has always made it a point of pride that the revenuers never caught him on the highway.  He parlayed his experience on the backroads of North Carolina into one of the most successful careers in NASCAR history.

********

Whisky running is memorialized in the NASCAR Hall of Fame:

DIGGING INTO NASCAR'S ROOTS, MOONSHINE RUNNERS & JUNIOR JOHNSON

HT: Kurt Sweat

Black markets for alcohol in Iran

 Prohibition (of alcohol) didn't work in the U.S. from 1920-1933, and it's not working in Iran today, despite "the Islamic Republic’s longstanding ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol, which is punishable by a penalty of up to 80 lashes and fines."

The NYT has the story:

Alcohol Poisonings Rise in Iran, Where Bootleggers Defy a Ban. Iran’s prohibition of the drinking and selling of alcohol has led to a flourishing underground market. But even officials have acknowledged a wave of hospitalizations and deaths in recent months.  By Farnaz Fassihi and Leily Nikounazar

"Rather than stopping drinking, the ban over time has led to a flourishing and  dangerous bootleg market. In the past three months, a wave of alcohol poisonings has spread across Iranian towns big and small, with an average of about 10 cases per day of hospitalizations and deaths, according to official tallies in local news reports.

"The culprit is methanol, found in homemade distilled alcohol and counterfeit brand bottles, apparently circulating widely, according to Iranian media reports and interviews with Iranians who drink, sell and make alcohol.

"The clerical rulers who took power after the 1979 revolution, instituting a theocracy, banned the consumption and selling of alcohol in accordance with Islamic rules prohibiting intoxication. Religious minorities are exempt. Over the decades, reports of methanol contaminations occasionally surfaced, but not in the scope and frequency seen in recent months....

"Even officials are now publicly acknowledging that the problem has escalated. Mehdi Forouzesh, Tehran’s chief coroner, said in a news conference in June that the number of hospitalizations and deaths from methanol poisoning had sharply risen. In only Tehran, he said, it had climbed by 36.8 percent since the beginning of March.

...

"Many Iranians love to drink, and nothing has dissuaded them from a tradition deeply rooted in ancient Persian culture. Homemade alcohol and imported bottles of liquor flow freely at many parties, weddings and social gatherings. Some upscale restaurants secretly serve patrons vodka in pots of tea."

Alcoholic beverage distributors

 The FCC investigates and regulates not just the industries we all know about, but also industries that quietly do a lot of the heavy lifting in ordinary lines of business.  Here's report of a (possible) FTC probe that sheds light on distributors of alcoholic beverages, in which big businesses I hadn't previously heard of operate in a much more concentrated fashion than I would have guessed.

Politico has the story:

Feds target alcohol pricing in new antitrust probe. The FTC has a similar investigation involving the soft drink market.

"The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into the largest U.S. alcohol distributor, Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, over practices related to how wine and liquor are priced and sold around the country, according to three people with knowledge of the probe.

"The FTC is investigating Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits for possible violations of the Robinson-Patman Act, a 1936 law prohibiting suppliers from offering better prices to large retailers at the expense of their smaller competitors, according to the people.

...

"According to a December 2022 Forbes report, Southern Glazer is the 11th largest privately held company in the U.S., with around $25 billion in revenue and distributing over 7,000 different brands of alcohol, wine, beer and other beverages. Republic National Distributing Company, the second largest alcohol distributor, which is not known to be a target in the probe, had 2022 revenues of around $12 billion, according to Forbes. Combined, the two companies account for the bulk of U.S. alcoholic beverage distribution.

Alcohol and race in Australia

 In the U.S. we certainly have a complicated history around both race and alcohol, but in Australia there may be even more complications, as a recent (limited) ban on alcohol and aborigines is reinstated.

The NY Times has the story

Authorities Reinstate Alcohol Ban for Aboriginal Australians. The reaction to a rise in crime has renewed hard questions about race and control, and about the open wounds of discrimination. By Yan Zhuang

"Mr. Shaw lives in what the government has deemed a “prescribed area,” an Aboriginal town camp where from 2007 until last year it was illegal to possess alcohol, part of a set of extraordinary raced-based interventions into the lives of Indigenous Australians.

"Last July, the Northern Territory let the alcohol ban expire for hundreds of Aboriginal communities, calling it racist. But little had been done in the intervening years to address the communities’ severe underlying disadvantage. Once alcohol flowed again, there was an explosion of crime in Alice Springs widely attributed to Aboriginal people. Local and federal politicians reinstated the ban late last month. 

...

"For those who believe that the country’s largely white leadership should not dictate the decisions of Aboriginal people, the alcohol ban’s return replicates the effects of colonialism and disempowers communities. Others argue that the benefits, like reducing domestic violence and other harms to the most vulnerable, can outweigh the discriminatory effects.

...

"According to the Northern Territory police, commercial breaks-ins, property damage, assaults related to domestic violence and alcohol-related assaults all rose by about or by more than 50 percent from 2021 to 2022. Australia does not break down crime data by race, but politicians and Aboriginal groups themselves have attributed the increase largely to Indigenous people.

"This was a preventable situation,” said Donna Ah Chee, the chief executive of one of these organizations, the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. “It was Aboriginal women, families and children that were actually paying the price,” she added.

"The organization was among those that called for a resumption of the ban as an immediate step while long-term solutions were developed to address the underlying drivers of destructive drinking. Ms. Ah Chee said she considered the policy to be “positive discrimination” in protecting those most vulnerable."

**********

Of course bans in one jurisdiction can have spillovers into others. Here's a story from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Katherine reports rise in transient visitors since return of Alice Springs alcohol restrictions  By Matt Garrick and Max Rowley

"An outback town struggling with crime and homelessness is seeing an influx of transient visitors, which some believe is a direct impact of new alcohol restrictions in Alice Springs."

Lobbying for sports gambling, with cigars and whisky

 Do addictions go together?  The NY Times has the story of how legalized (online, sports) gambling lobbyists wooed state legislators with whisky and cigars (and campaign contributions, which I guess can be addictive too...). Maybe Thanksgiving football can draw in more of the gathering if there's betting involved? (Not to mention whisky...)

Gambling has long been a repugnant transaction because the consequences of gambling addiction can be destructive for individuals and families. And betting on sports has been repugnant because of the danger that athletes will be drawn into fixing matches (even in once genteel sports like tennis).  Lobbying is a competitive sport too:

Cigars, Booze, Money: How a Lobbying Blitz Made Sports Betting Ubiquitous By Eric Lipton and Kenneth P. Vogel

"Less than five years ago, betting on sports in the United States was prohibited under federal law except in Nevada casinos and a smattering of venues in other states. Sports leagues argued that the ban safeguarded the integrity of American sports, while consumer watchdogs warned that legal gambling could turn fans into addicts. In countries like Britain, sports gambling free-for-alls had left trails of addiction.

"But in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal prohibition was unconstitutional.

"DraftKings and FanDuel, giants in the fast-growing field of fantasy sports, had already mobilized an army of former regulators and politicians to press for sports betting in state capitals. Soon, in a crucial reversal, sports leagues overcame their antipathy toward gambling, which they came to see as a way to keep increasingly distracted audiences tuned in. Casino companies also hopped on board.

...

"The results of the lobbying campaign have been stunning: 31 states and Washington, D.C., permit sports gambling either online or in person, and five more have passed laws that will allow such betting in the future.

...

"In May 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports gambling, ruling it infringed on states’ rights."

*******

Here's a map:

**********

The NYT has these related stories:

Key Findings From The Times’ Investigation of Sports Betting. By David Enrich

"Four years ago, it was illegal to gamble on sports in most of the United States. Today, anyone who turns on the television or visits a sports website or shows up at a stadium is likely to be inundated with ads to bet, bet, bet."

How Colleges and Sports-Betting Companies ‘Caesarized’ Campus Life. by  Anna Betts, Andrew Little, Elizabeth Sander, Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly and Walt Bogdanich

"Ever since the Supreme Court’s decision in 2018 to let states legalize such betting, gambling companies have been racing to convert traditional casino customers, fantasy sports aficionados and players of online games into a new generation of digital gamblers. Major universities, with their tens of thousands of alumni and a captive audience of easy-to-reach students, have emerged as an especially enticing target.

"So far, at least eight universities have become partners with online sports-betting companies, or sportsbooks, many in the last year, with more expected."

Desperate for Growth, Aging Casino Company Embraced ‘Degenerate Gambler’

Image By Emily Steel

"Mr. Portnoy rarely if ever mentions the bankruptcy. Yet he and his company, Barstool Sports, are urging their tens of millions of followers to dive into the fast-growing and lightly regulated world of online sports betting."

**********

And here's a story about gambling addiction from The Times of London, which points to online, in-game gambling as a particularly addiction-prone activity (especially during the current World Cup):

Big rise in gambling addictions putting suicidal young men in hospital. NHS lambasts ‘predatory’ betting firms amid 42% increase in demand for specialist clinics by Eleanor Hayward (Ungated summary here).

"The NHS is “picking up the tab” of the online betting industry, with a surge in suicidal gambling addicts turning up to A&E, doctors have warned."

...

"“People start gambling as soon as they wake up in the morning; they’re gambling in the shower, gambling while they’re driving to work.

...

"Gaskell suggested that doctors' surgeries should routinely ask new patients whether they gambled--in the same way they asked how much alcohol people drank in a week.

...

"Figures from the Gambling Commission show the majority of online betters place bets in play...Customers are able to wager lare sums of money multiple times in a matter of seconds on unfolding events.

...

"There are 400 suicides a year in England lnked to gambling."

The market for alcoholic drinks in Bangladesh

Doctors can prescribe alcohol in Bangladesh.

The Economist has the story:

Bangladesh loosens its booze laws

"Consumption of alcohol has long been outlawed for Muslims, who today make up 90% of the population. Other religions are exempt but need a permit issued by the government. A loophole for Muslims was introduced in 1950, but it includes a requirement for a doctor’s certificate. The permit declares that the holder “requires liquor on medical grounds” and is “hereby permitted to possess and consume foreign liquor”. Few bother. Most drinking is illicit and feeds a lucrative black market for imported liquor. Cases of people dying after drinking dodgy home-brew are not uncommon. 

"The government has acknowledged the problem. It is overhauling the rules in a simultaneous bid to boost domestic industry and bring boozing within the law. Individuals will still require permits, but the process for restaurants and bars to get liquor licences will be made less ambiguous. The new laws, which were introduced in February, also oblige establishments to buy 60% of their stock from the country’s two licensed producers: Jamuna Group, which makes Hunter, Bangladesh’s only home-grown beer, and Carew & Co, a state-run distiller of such fine tipples as Gold Riband Gin, Old Rum and Imperial Whisky."

HT: Alex Chan

Opioid deaths are behind increases in deceased organ donation

 Medpage Today warns us not to take credit for increases in organ donation that are due to rising numbers of opioid overdose deaths. 

'Shocking Mismanagement' in Our Organ Donation System Is Causing Needless Death— OPTN and OPOs are mischaracterizing organ donation data to block system reform  by DJ Patil, PhD, Greg Segal, Ebony Hilton, MD, and Lachlan Forrow, MD

"The magnitude of the opioid crisis shows no signs of peaking. New data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics show that deaths from the opioid epidemic soared by 50% from October 2019 to October 2021, some of which reflected second-order effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, alcohol-related deaths, according to recent CDC reports, were also up by a shocking 25% in 2020, from an average increase of 3.6% per year from 1999-2019.

"What does this have to do with organ donation? Drug overdoses and alcohol-related deaths fall into the subset of deaths that allow for organ donation to occur, so this sharp rise in opioid deaths has driven record-breaking organ donation numbers. That might sound like a silver lining to a very dark cloud, but as is often the case with public health data, the picture is much more complex.

"The government contractors in charge of organ donation -- both organ procurement organizations (OPOs), which oversee local organ recovery, and the organ procurement transplantation network (OPTN), which manages the system -- are hiding behind increases in these deaths of despair to deflect criticism from what the House Oversight Committee has characterized as "shocking mismanagement" in organ procurement.

"In fact, HHS has deemed the majority of OPOs to be failing key performance metrics, contributing to 33 Americans dying every day for lack of an organ transplant. And the Senate Finance Committee is investigating the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the OPTN contractor, over "serious concerns related to [its] role in overseeing our nation's OPOs, which have been severely underperforming for decades."

...

"We have more organ donors in America not because we have a strong -- or even remotely adequate -- organ procurement system, but because on a per capita basis among wealthy nations, we have many times more deaths in those subsets of deaths that allow for organ donation to occur. This includes 20 to 30 times more opioid deaths, 25 times as many gun deaths, the highest suicides rates, and more than twice as many fatal car accidents -- a number that spiked again precipitously last year."

100 years since Prohibition

An op-ed in the NY Times points out that Prohibition didn't start suddenly when the 18th Amendment went into effect in January 1920--it was a popular movement that had started with ordinary legislation.

Why Americans Supported Prohibition 100 Years Ago
Temperance crusaders weren’t crackpots. They were fighting the business of making money off addiction.  By Mark Lawrence Schrad

"The United States had already been “dry” for the previous half-year thanks to the Wartime Prohibition Act. And even before that, 32 of the 48 states had already enacted their own statewide prohibitions.

“With little that differed from normal wartime prohibition drinking habits, New York City entered at 12:01 o’clock this morning into the long dry spell,” this newspaper solemnly noted.

...

"Temperance was the longest-running, most widely supported social movement in both American and global history. Its foe wasn’t the drink in the bottle or the drunk who drank it, but the drink traffic: powerful business interests — protected by a government reliant on liquor taxes — getting men addicted to booze, and then profiting handsomely by bleeding them and their families dry.

...

"For a better understanding of temperance and prohibition, forget Bible-thumping “thou shalt nots.” Think instead about a major industry making outlandish profits by getting people hooked on an addictive substance that could kill them. Maybe that industry uses some of those profits to buy corrupt political cover by currying favor with government and oversight bodies. Let’s call this substance “opioids,” and the industry, “Big Pharma.”

"This is the same type of predatory capitalism that the temperance-cum-prohibition movement fought 100 years ago. Should big businesses be able to use addiction to reap tremendous profits from the poor? If your answer is no, and you were around 100 years ago, you likely would have joined the vast majority of Americans calling for the prohibition of liquor traffic."

Whiskey production is a warehouse business

When we think of whiskey we think of distillers. But aging requires barrels, and barrels take up space for a long time.  A recent fire brings this to mind.  The Washington Post has the story:

A Jim Beam warehouse caught fire, destroying 45,000 barrels of bourbon

"A standard barrel contains about 53 gallons of bourbon, which is aged for years to achieve its desired color and flavor. The bourbon gives the flames ample material to burn, Chandler said. Generally, any alcohol that’s at least 80 proof — like most bourbon — is flammable.
...
"The company operates 126 barrel warehouses, which collectively hold 3.3 million barrels, in the state. The warehouse that was destroyed contained relatively young whiskey, Beam Suntory said, the loss of which will not impact availability.
...
"In the past year, bourbon distillers have also had to contend with the economic consequences of President Trump’s trade war. U.S. whiskey exports slowed during the second half of 2018, after trading partners including the European Union enacted retaliatory tariffs of up to 25 percent, raising the cost of American-made whiskey and bourbon. Sales fell by 11 percent from July to December last year, compared with the same period in 2017, according to data compiled by the Distilled Spirits Council."

MGP, the market for American whiskeys, and thoughts of the year gone by

Suppose you would like to start producing fine bourbon, aged for (at least) several years in charred American white oak. How can you hit the ground running?  MGP.  Those initials used to stand for  Midwest Grain Products, Inc., but the company is now called MGP Ingredients, Inc., and makes industrial quantities of lots of things that start out as plants.

So, if you are a new bourbon producer (or an established brand, non-distilling producer), you can buy bourbon from MGP,  which makes it in vast quantities in Indiana, and, voila, you have your own small batch whiskey ready to go. (According to Wikipedia, "There are generally no clear criteria as to what defines a "small batch.")

(I'm reminded of how Samuel Adams beer, which started off being sold to beer drinkers in Boston who appreciated a local beer, was initially brewed under contract by Iron City in Pittsburgh, where I lived at the time...none of this is mentioned at https://www.samueladams.com/history).
************

I might do some market research tonight, while thinking of the year gone by.

Among economists whose passing I marked this year, John and Alicia Nash (and here and here), Herb Scarf, and Douglass North.

Washington State liquor stores--followup on the auction

As I wrote in March, Washington State auctioned off its state liquor stores in an online auction that  opened March 6, 2012 and closed April 20, using an entirety auction, in which either all the stores would be sold together to one bidder, or each store would be sold separately.  The separate bidders won. However, 18 of them failed to come forward and pay their bids, and so a second re-auction followed, on May 24. (The re-auction of those 18 seems to have been well attended.)

Here are the results of the initial auction (the 18 failed bids wouldn't have changed the outcome...)

By the Numbers
• Total sum of individual bids       $30.75 million
• High all-store bid                      $4.6 million (will not count)
• Registered bidders                    551
• Total number of bids                 14,627
• Single stores to individuals        93
• Multiple stores to individuals     28
• Lowest winning bid                    $49,600 for Store 186 in Spokane (Division street)
• Highest winning bid                   $750,100 for Store 122 in Tacoma (72nd and Pacific)
• Increase in bids on final day      $23.7 million

Like many online auctions, if a bid was placed during the final five minutes of the auction, the end time would automatically extend for an additional five minutes. The official planned end of the auction was 4:00 p.m. PDT. However, heavy bidding activity extended the auction until 6:25 p.m. Friday evening.

The re-auction of the 18 liquor stores brought in an additional $5.9 million.

A remnant of Prohibition ends in Washington State.

One of the remaining remnants of Prohibition crumbled in Washington State today (i.e. starting June 1), when the state monopoly on liquor gives way to the newly privatized system.

I posted earlier about the auction for all 167 state liquor stores, and that auction resulted in the stores being sold individually (and not all to one bidder, as was one of the possibilities of the auction, which had an "entirety" option ). As it turns out, individual bids added up to more than any entirety bids, and so those stores are now individually in private hands, including 18 stores that had to be reauctioned when the original winners defaulted (see here for a news story  on the reauction at a link which will likely last longer).

The NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Policyand Alcoholism compiles information on state policies on the sale of alcohol, which has remained a somewhat repugnant transaction in many places, with a storied American history. See their Alcohol Policy Information System.

 This map shows that there will be only seven states with state owned liquor stores now.

The sale of alcohol was prohibited by the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919, and Prohibition was ended by the 21st amendment to the Constitution in 1933.

When I searched for 18th amendment, the top items were links to the amendment, but when I searched for 21st amendment, the top link was to a San Francisco brewery and restaurant with that name:) (It's a popular name, here's the Boston restaurant...). So the sale of alcohol is a recovered (or recovering) repugnant market. It will be interesting to see how some  other repugnant transactions end or begin in the coming years.

Bid for a liquor store in Washington State, or for all of them

The State of Washington is auctioning off all 167 state owned liquor stores, in an auction running through March and April. It is what used to be called an "entirety auction," a simple kind of combinatorial or package bidding auction that allows both bids on individual stores, and bids on the package of all 167.

Here's the auction page of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, here's the online auction site itself, and here's an information page.

"Bids may be placed on one or multiple stores. There will also be an option for a bidder to make a single offer on the entire store network. This would secure the exclusive rights associated with all 167 state store locations. This simultaneous auction approach accomplishes multiple objectives. It lends itself to small entrepreneurs as well as larger entities that may have interest in this unique business opportunity. Additionally, it optimizes the opportunity to obtain maximum reasonable value for the assets being sold. Finally, the simultaneous approach allows for this to be completed within the tight timelines that were required by law."

Bid responsibly.

Beer legally for sale in another Mississippi county

Another repugnant transaction bites the dust: A Voting Result That Faulkner Could Drink To


"NEW ALBANY, Miss. — There was a vote here last month. It was hard-fought, with dueling newspaper advertisements and yard signs, tableside debates in restaurants, a prayer rally and a fusillade of last-minute phone calls.
But only one side could win, and the victory was a historic one: in a couple of months, a person will be able to buy a beer legally here in William Faulkner's birthplace for the first time in more than 50 years.
Liquor and wine, of course, are still illegal, because the vote concerned only the sale of beer and wine coolers. But there is no shortage of bad news for teetotalers.
At a post-election meeting of the Board of Aldermen, people opposed to alcohol urged, among other things, that beer not be sold on Sundays, or in single bottles, or even refrigerated. They recommended that cases of beer be available only warm, as they are in the city of Oxford 30 miles down the road, requiring a degree of premeditation on the part of the discriminating beer buyer.
The aldermen ruled against them on all counts."
...
"Mississippi, the first state to ratify Prohibition, has a peculiar history when it comes to temperance. Liquor was banned here long after federal Prohibition was repealed in 1933, under an arrangement that pleased everyone: the Baptists, the bootleggers and the state, which, curiously enough, levied taxes on illegal alcohol. "

Repugnant transactions in Australia

Australian pub offers free alcohol for knickerless women.

Mayor Janet Cribbes slammed the promotion in the local press.
"It fuels the fire for irresponsible drinking, irresponsible behaviour and puts young women at risk and makes them more vulnerable to sexual assault," she said.
"I'd thought they would have learnt their lesson from the dwarf episode. We'll be paying them a visit soon, I'd say."