[aacook]

I like the idea and a point-of-sale like system seems like it would make a good product.

A couple years ago a new bar opened up across the street from me. At the same time, a liquor store down the street was going out of business and put most of the liquor on clearance. The new bar owner filled me in on the state of liquor in Massachusetts. Apparently the system is super controlled by distributors. Even if he wanted to go down to the liquor store and buy 100 bottles of liquor on clearance, he couldn't. He can only buy through a licensed distributor. Some of the liquor he stocked was actually more expensive through the distributor than it was from retail liquor stores in the area. The industry has special controls in place, like special caps on dealer-distributed liquor. He joked about buying some of the clearance liquor and pouring it into the bottles. It was pretty clear that I was paying higher prices because of the distributor-controlled market.

Massachusetts seems to have some of the most strict alcohol laws around. Unlike neighboring states like New Hampshire, we can't order wine from wherever we want online. This means that many of the wines that I'd like to drink aren't available to me since no one in the area distributes them. Some people get around this by shipping wine to friends in nearby states or by traveling to places and shipping cases back via UPS marked "tiles + olive oil".