Alaska distilleries banned from serving cocktails

The US state of Alaska has altered its licensing laws, meaning distillery tasting rooms can no longer sell cocktails and mixed drinks.

Distillery tasting rooms in Alaska can no longer serve cocktails

New legislation from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board of Alaska now means a tasting room can only sell the products produced at its respective distillery.

The new law states: “A licensee may provide other non-alcoholic products but may not combine them with a distilled spirit.”

For tasting rooms and distillery’s in Alaska, this means they can no longer make cocktails and mixed drinks on site, and any mixers or soft drinks sold must remain separate from spirits.

Distillery’s in the US state have been able to operate tasting rooms since 2014 when the facilities were legalised.

However, since then an increasing number of laws have come into force, which distilleries claim have been designed to prevent them from turning into traditional cocktail bars.

Currently, distillery tasting rooms are unable to serve alcohol after 8pm, are banned from providing entertainment for drinkers and must not provide bar stools for drinkers.

A document containing over 500 pages of letters from local residents was presented to the government ahead of its vote on the new legislation earlier this week.

According to this document, the tasting rooms proved popular with Alaskans who were not fond of traditional bar environments and wanted to support local businesses.

There are currently nine distilleries operating in Alaska, including the Anchorage Distillery in the state’s largest city.