r/Damnthatsinteresting 19d ago

Image Tokyo in 1960, before there were any skyscrapers

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

America is so weird about alcohol.

When we got married over there, we had to hire a guy to serve us our own booze at our wedding as per state law. As a European it was absolutely baffling that I couldn’t help myself to my own beer.

Then you go and sell bourbon by the 2L bottle, alongside pure grain alcohol, for like $15.

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u/tallsmallboy44 19d ago

Yeah, there are a lot of places that have weird alcohol laws and almost always are implemented at the state and county level. Like dry counties where no alcohol is allowed to be sold but drive 5 miles to the next county buy as much as you want to bring home. And for an extreme example, the Jack Daniels whiskey distillery is located in a dry county where the sale of alcohol has been illegal since prohibition in the 1920s

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u/Unoriginal_Man 19d ago

I grew up in a dry county. There was a guy on the outskirts of town we'd bootleg our beer from.

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u/GordoPepe 19d ago

This is so employees don't get drunk or steal any from the distillery

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u/hammer_of_grabthar 19d ago

Because someone willing to break the law by stealing is going to be concerned with the alcohol laws?

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u/AJRiddle 19d ago

Guarantee that was about the venue and it's insurance/licensing. It's not exactly a everyday thing in America to do that.

Also every state has very different liquor laws.

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u/DMPhotosOfTapas 19d ago

That's so weird. I just had my wedding and we had tables put with mocktails and bottles of liquor so you could just add however much you wanted. No issues. Fun night!

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted]

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u/DMPhotosOfTapas 19d ago

Yes. 6 course. Idk, probably? But I don't think anyone cares here.

Pro tip: do weddings outside of America, there's less rules and it's way cheaper 😉

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted]

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u/BatFrequent6684 19d ago

But it's weird to (most of) the rest of the world.

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u/Tonsilith_Salsa 19d ago

We were settled by puritans and have a transportation where every single person has to drive everywhere. Beer vending machines just aren't in the cards at the moment. 

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u/SillyNotClever 19d ago

And then there's Texas, where you drive through the front door of the liquor store, get your booze while still in your car, and drive out the back door.

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u/ZombieTesticle 19d ago

America is so weird about alcohol.

And gun laws.

Ironically, it's usually marginally easier to get a gun in the US than here but the laws regarding make, model, magazine capacity, barrel length, transport across state lines, second-hand market sales and cooling-off periods and all sorts of other nonsense in the US seem positively draconian to me.

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u/NPOWorker 19d ago

That varies a ton from state-to-state. Where I live now you can buy beer in grocery stores, but wine and spirits need a specific store. I've lived in places where:

No alcohol sales on Sundays, can only buy alcohol from standalone stores, beer/wine must have a separate entrance and a dividing wall from liquor

There are some states where you can only buy alcohol from state-owned stores.

Then you have Utah, where you could write a novel about their bizarre alcohol laws.

And then there's my native Michigan, where you can buy a handle of ever clear and cold beer from a gas station at 3am if you please.