To-go drinks an elixir for public, a lifeline for business

DETROIT (AP) — The coronavirus is shaking up America's liquor laws.

At least 33 states and the District of Columbia are temporarily allowing cocktails to-go during the pandemic. Only two — Florida and Mississippi — allowed them on a limited basis before coronavirus struck, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Struggling restaurants say it’s a lifeline, letting them rehire bartenders, pay rent and reestablish relationships with customers. But others want states to slow down, saying the decades-old laws help ensure public safety.

Julia Momose closed Kumiko, her Japanese-style cocktail bar in Chicago, on March 16. The next day, Illinois allowed bars and restaurants to start selling unopened bottles of beer, wine and liquor, but mixed drinks were excluded.

Momose spent the next three months collecting petition signatures and pressing lawmakers to allow carryout cocktails. It worked. On June 17, she poured her first to-go drink: a Seaflower, made with gin, vermouth, Japanese citrus fruit and fermented chili paste. A carryout bottle, which serves two, costs $32.

Momose has been able to hire back four of her furloughed employees. A group she co-founded, Cocktails for Hope, is now helping restaurants buy glass bottles in bulk for carryout.

“Part of getting cocktails to go approved was embracing the fact that this isn’t going to fix everything, but it is going to fix something,” Momose said. “All these little things that we do will keep us open and keep our staff employed.”

U.S. liquor laws — many of which date to the end of Prohibition in 1933 —are a confusing jumble that vary by state, city and county.

Carryout cocktail regulations — which were passed starting in March — only deepen that confusion. Lawmakers approved...