Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
It is interesting now one has to take a test to be a bartender.
Years back, the only requirement in Texas to own a bar was make sure someone knew the regulations.
Oh and the owner could not be drunk in his own bar.
Yes, I threw my boss out more than once.
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<grin>
What sort of regulations and tests exist is very much a local matter.
One likely selector will be whether liquor is a state monopoly. For instance, I grew up in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania is a place where liquor is a state monopoly. You can only buy hard liquor in State Stores, and the selection will be those approved by the state. Liquor is also more expensive, with a variety of state excise taxes and surcharges in top of sales taxes. There is a very healthy smuggling trade in consequence between PA and DE and NJ, where taxes are far lower. There's a major liquor outlet right across one the the bridges connecting PA to NJ. Smart smugglers cross the bridge, load up at the NJ outlet, then continue on further east, and take the long way back via a different route between the states. The PA State Troopers keep an eye on the liquor outlet in NJ, and wait happily for anyone who tries to load up and come straight back the way they came.
PA also still has vestiges of Puritan heritage, with Blue laws that specify what you may not do on Sunday. When I was a small child, I recall alcohol as being a not on Sunday thing, and it wasn't till I was a late teenager that it became legal to sell stuff like beer in supermarkets.
I haven't looked up what PA requires to get a bartender's license, but I suspect their regulations are fussier than many other places.
Up to the 1920's, PA was a major producer of rye whiskey, distilling 6 million barrels a year at it's peak. Prohibition put an end to that, but it's beginning to return, and there are an assortment of artisan distillers who set up to produce rye. They are located in rural areas where farmers grow rye, so what they distill is locally sourced. I've sampled a couple, and it you like rye whiskey, it's very nice indeed.
(Terminology also a fertile source of confusion. In Canada, for historical reasons, rye is synonymous with whiskey, and it's possible to buy bottles of something labeled Rye that has never come with kilometers of the grain. We did a rye tasting at an event I'm involved with, and the guy running it had to define just what was being tasted in consequence.
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Dennis