In 2020 we worked on getting cocktails-to-go passed in Illinois. With our movement of the first cocktails-to-go bill passed in America, we faced great opposition from the government. There were refrains that it was dangerous because people would now be able to open a ready-made cocktail while driving and Chicago would turn into New Orleans. The worst-case scenarios were laid bare on us and we had to answer.

Fortunately, the situation was dire enough and the political class was willing to work with us to pass a bill. Numerous bars and restaurants expanded their revenue with this new source of income and were able to survive the worst of COVID. The lesson from this journey was the alcohol industry when modernizing has a great and positive economic impact, and worst-case scenarios can become accounted for through well thought out laws. Five years later evidence of worst-case scenarios has not come to fruition and the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Unfortunately, the trend of modernization under cocktails-to-go has not spread to the rest of the alcohol industry.

Instead, the old politics of paranoia and worst-case scenarios rules the day. Pushed by wholesalers with their armies of attorneys and lobbyists, many in legislatures and even the federal judiciary buy these paranoid theories to justify holding back economic expansion and consumer choice.

It is American free market common sense that for a business to grow, expanding its markets for selling is a positive thing. It is also American free market common sense that consumers, if they can’t get the product they desire at their local retailer, should be able to access the means necessary such as going online to purchase an item.

However, these core principles of an American free market are overruled by vague pronouncements that somehow allowing consumer choice and economic growth is not safe. We are led to believe that if these are allowed that the consumer will overconsume and a business with no moral integrity will flood markets with cheap alcohol.

Again, there is no evidence provided by the detractors just an argument that we should buy without critical analysis.

What is lacking in this faux in-depth analysis is a solution to expand economic growth for the industry and at the same time put in place safeguards.

While the industry is falling and losing greater market share and as the wholesaler lobby turns itself towards cannabis and hemp beverage as its next growth area, we should ask ourselves, should we really take these arguments seriously? But also, we need to ask another question, why are we letting these arguments artificially stunt economic growth in an industry where people are shutting their doors and tearing up land. Cocktails-to-go saved restaurants and bars, DTC shipping could do the same for suppliers and retailers, if we let go of old paranoias that stop progress and instead make a well regulated framework that addresses concerns.