The state’s distillers celebrated Monday as Governor Cooper signed a bill that will allow them to sell cocktails on-site and loosen restrictions on bottle sales.
Cooper signed the bill at Graybeard Distillery Monday. The bill passed the General Assembly earlier this month.
Starting in September, the ABC Regulatory Reform Act, also known as Senate Bill 290, lifts the cap for on-site sales and allows distillers to sell cocktails out of their facilities, creating more equity with breweries and wineries. Up until now, distilleries were restricted to only serving communion cup-sized samples of liquor to guests with no mixers.
As the INDY reported in February, state’s burgeoning craft distilling market has been fighting to reform North Carolina’s Prohibition-era laws and struggling to turn a profit. Some distilleries, like Knightdale’s Gentry Lassiter, have been banking on the new bill to give their businesses a boost by lifting the five-bottle-per-year restriction for on-site sales. Lassiter is now ready to turn Lassiter Distilling Company into the town’s first cocktail bar.
Durham Distillery announced plans to open Corpse Reviver, a craft cocktail bar, underneath its facility next year.
Distiller Rim Vilgalys told the INDY last month he’s also excited for the new business the law could help bring to his distillery, The Brothers Vilgalys.
“We’d be able to be a better part of the community around us. If we’re able to host an environment where people can come and hang out, then we can really start to participate in the great scene in Durham,” Vilgalys said.
UPDATE: The story has been corrected to note the location where Cooper signed the bill.
Contact staff writer Leigh Tauss at ltauss@indyweek.com.
Support independent local journalism. Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.
Okay, older article at this point. This is all well and good. But, if you want to loosen regulations around alcohol, how about keep ABCs open after 21:00? How about you open them on Sundays? Not to get too crazy here, but how about you just get rid of the ABC system and allow independent liquor stores? Having grown up in a state without an ABC system, it’s truly bizarre, and a major pain in the neck, to deal with the state running things.
States are legalizing marijuana. Cities are decriminalizing psilocybin. But here in North Carolina…I can’t buy beer before noon on Sunday. To that I say, Jesus H.