A bit off topic perhaps but here in Fairbanks, Alaska you can regularly get a bottle of Bookers for $47.00 + tax. Not everywhere, mind you, but if you go to the Walmart liquor store you can. Everyday pricing, too. I've never seen this tasty bourbon regularly priced so low anywhere else in the country - though I've yet to look for bourbon in Kentucky. Last week, the little convenience store 5 miles up the road had a 750ml bottle of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked priced at $25.00! Not everything is super expensive in Alaska...

Unless you're buying cases and cases or for business, I don't see what the cops would be doing. It's not illegal to buy liquor out of state.

As for prices, I find Maryland is cheaper than DC, FWIW, but it depends on the store and the item.

Come to D.C. I just saw a bottle at Washington Wine & Liquor on 1200 E St NW. I saw an awful lot of bourbon bottles. Seemed like at least 80 different brands/types. Including large 1.75 liter sizes of Buffalo Trace. Sazerac Rye. Diamond Edition Wild Turkey (never heard of that), Blantons, 1792, and dozens of other names. Some were priced high and some had ok prices. A few were even marked down.

In my experience, yes. My dad used to tell those same stories back in the 1980s.

The Vienna ABC store had plenty of Rittenhouse Rye when I was there on Saturday.

Also wanted to add that I was the recipient of a very nice bottle of Elmer T. Lee over the weekend. It's nice to have thoughtful friends! ^

It was certainly still illegal in Mass when I left in 1989. The cops would arrest drivers of cars that were spotted at the NH state liquor store parking lot over the line. I also heard of busses from Connecticut being stopped and liquor purchases being confiscated by CT state police.

It's something to do with failure to pay the state liquor tax.

You're correct. Those brands go for $60 and $30 respectively around here, unless the Woodford is on sale. I have never seen Bookers at less than $60.

I'm officially old. I recall buying Bookers for $19 in the past.

Wasn't this the whole plot of Smokey and the Bandit?

Well I'm not sure it was about taxes. But I do recall that Coors was not available east of the Mississippi.

If only that was still the case. lol

And they needed a whole truck load of it.

"Eastbound and down. Loaded up and truckin'"

I relatively frequently receive online deals offering Booker's for $45-ish. (VA ABC sells it for around $55.) Most are for two different batches together, e.g. $90 for the pair. Not bad for a decent, super-high-proof bourbon I suppose.


I suspect the liberalization of interstate alcohol laws in the 90s changed things (around the time many states started allowing out-of-state online sales to be shipped to their states--I know some still don't, of course, but seems like most do now).

That's not to say states don't still have incredibly silly or obscure alcohol laws...

I can't speak for Virginia, but I have heard of Pennsylvania state police doing the same at New Jersey stores across the Delaware River. The way I heard the story, though, they quit doing it when New Jersey police started ticketing the Pennsylvania cops for trespassing and loitering. ;)

I'll have to check it out next time I'm in DC. Got lucky today was in Hillsborough NC and decided just to give the ABC store there a try. They had two Rittenhouse left so I grabbed them.

Guy running the store said he's been hearing that VA is getting most of the harder to find / good stuff right now (including Weller 107 which they had a place for on the shelf but said they've been out for months).

Tough times down in NC for anything that isn't mass produced and aimed at pleasing the majority of customers coming in the door.