States defending local alcohol privileges often try to draft around the dormant Commerce Clause with a delivery distinction. They do not always write that only in-state breweries, wineries, or distilleries may ship. Instead, they create a delivery, shipping, self-distribution, or direct-sale privilege and then say the privilege may be exercised only through the permit holder’s own employees.

That sounds neutral. It usually isn’t.

A local brewery can send an employee across town. A local winery can deliver from the tasting room. A local distillery can put someone in a branded van. But a brewery in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, California, or…
Continue Reading Maryland’s Beer Delivery Case Shows Why “Employee Delivery” May Not Save Discriminatory Alcohol Shipping Laws

Illinois liquor distributors, importing distributors, manufacturers, RTD cocktail producers, and alcohol brand owners should be paying close attention to the Illinois Department of Revenue’s proposed amendments to 86 Ill. Adm. Code 420.

The proposal is being presented as an update to Illinois’ Liquor Control Act rules and liquor gallonage tax administration. But for many Illinois alcohol businesses, especially those dealing in ready-to-drink cocktails, spirit-based seltzers, canned cocktails, alcohol-infused products, and other innovative low-ABV products, the proposed rule is not just a technical cleanup. It may revive the same constitutional problem the Illinois Supreme Court rejected nearly forty years ago…
Continue Reading IDOR’s Proposed Liquor Tax Overhaul: A Return to the Same Unconstitutional Scheme the Illinois Supreme Court Already Struck Down

If you sell, distribute, manufacture, or simply enjoy hemp-derived THC beverages in Illinois, the clock may be ticking faster than you think.

On May 20, 2026, Rep. Will Guzzardi, joined by Justin Slaughter, Bob Morgan, Kevin John Olickal, Lisa Davis, Barbara Hernandez, and Sharon Chung, filed HB 5784 — a 561-page cannabis omnibus bill that would do many things, but one thing in particular should have the hemp beverage industry’s full attention. As of this writing, HB 5784 has been referred to the House Rules Committee.

Buried near the front of the bill is a proposed new CBD Consumer …
Continue Reading Illinois HB 5784 Would Kill Hemp THC Beverages Early

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in State Tax Assessor v. Fifth Generation, Inc., 2026 ME 30, should get the attention of beer, wine, and spirits manufacturers, importers, and distributors. The case involved Fifth Generation, Inc., the Texas-based S corporation behind Tito’s Vodka, which had no Maine real estate, did not hold itself out to the public as doing business in Maine, and did not file Maine pass-through-entity withholding or income tax returns for the 2011–2017 audit period. But Maine is a control state for spirits. To sell Tito’s in Maine, Fifth Generation had to use Maine’s state-controlled…
Continue Reading Maine Forced Tito’s Into a State Warehouse — Then Taxed It for Being There

Every once in a while competing alcohol brands get into a dispute over advertising that turns into a useful lesson about how far “first” claims can go before they become actionable false advertising. We have been following one of those fights for a few years now: the dispute between Victory Global, LLC, doing business as Brough Brothers Distillery, and Fresh Bourbon, LLC, over competing claims tied to being Kentucky’s first African American-owned bourbon distillery.

We wrote about the case in 2023 when the Eastern District of Kentucky held that TTB label approval does not preclude Lanham Act false advertising claims.
Continue Reading Sixth Circuit Affirms Dismissal in Kentucky Bourbon “First Black-Owned Distillery” Fight — and the Lanham Act Lesson Is a Good One

A bar called “The Barber Shop” should not need a barber license.

That ought to be the easy part.

And yet, in Osteria Segreto, LLC v. Hilgers, a Nebraska federal court denied a preliminary injunction sought by an Omaha cocktail bar that wanted to keep using the name “The Barber Shop Blackstone,” barber-pole imagery, and barber-themed décor without obtaining a barber-shop license. The plaintiff, Osteria Segreto, LLC, formerly operated as “an Italian speakeasy” and rebranded as “a barber shop themed bar.” The business was approved by the Nebraska Secretary of State to use the trade name “The Barber Shop…
Continue Reading A Barber Pole, A Cocktail Bar, and a Bad First Amendment Result: Why the Osteria Segreto Decision Gets The Barber Shop Blackstone Wrong

Every alcohol licensee knows the knock.

A liquor investigator, police officer, excise agent, revenue agent, or local enforcement official walks into the licensed premises and asks to inspect records, walk the warehouse, look behind the bar, review invoices, pull POS data, examine delivery logs, ask for employee records, look at surveillance video, or open the back office.

Most bars, restaurants, retailers, distributors, breweries, wineries, and distilleries assume the same thing: we hold a state liquor license, so the state can search whatever it wants.

Not so fast.

In Generis Entertainment, LLC v. Donley, a federal court in Michigan just…
Continue Reading The Fourth Amendment Walks Into a Bar: Federal Court Says Michigan’s Warrantless Liquor Inspection Law Is Unconstitutional. Your State’s May Be as Well

Distributors already know what happens when a supplier moves a brand. Everybody rushes to fair market value, inventory, depletion, transition timing, and customer handoff. The paperwork often follows the same script. A brand transfer agreement sets the mechanics, the parties fight over value if they have to, and the money changes hands.

A recent Washington decision shows that this process deserves a harder look. The case did not just ask how much the terminated distributor should receive. It asked what that payment actually was. And the answer mattered. The Washington Court of Appeals held that more than $21 million paid …
Continue Reading When a Distributor Loses a Brand, the Tax Fight May Start in the Brand Transfer Agreement

Craft brewing grew up on beer-and-a-handshake deals. An artist liked the brewery, liked the founders, liked the project, and put pen to paper before anybody thought about diligence schedules, disclosure letters, or chain-of-title memos. Those days are not gone. They probably never will be. And that is not entirely a bad thing. The brewing industry would lose something real if every early-stage collaboration had to start with a stack of paper and a call to counsel.

But Fuss v. Bensch shows the cost of leaving too much unsaid.

The dispute centers on SweetWater’s famous trout artwork. According to…
Continue Reading Who Owns the Brewery Logo? When Beer-and-a-Handshake Branding Deals Collide with Brewery Sales

Alcohol distributors know the scenario too well: a brand underperforms, the parties agree to unwind, and the supplier promises to “take care of” remaining inventory—until the calls stop, the warehouse fills up, and the storage invoices keep coming.

A recent New York Supreme Court decision, Labatt USA Operating Co., LLC v. Friends Beverage Group, LLC, squarely addresses that problem. The court awarded a national distributor more than $1.1 million after a supplier refused to retrieve unsold product following termination—while quietly monetizing the same inventory elsewhere. The opinion offers important guidance on distribution agreement terminations, unsold inventory obligations, storage costs,…
Continue Reading When Suppliers Walk Away from Inventory: What Alcohol Distributors Can Learn from Labatt USA v. Friends Beverage Group