The Mormon majority in Utah makes it a particularly difficult place to own a bar. The liquor laws are unlike those anywhere else. One Salt Lake City restauranteur opened what became a very popular restaurant and closed a little more than two years later -because the restaurant had always been a place-holder until a liquor license became available and the originally-planned bar could be launched. And that’s just the beginning of the quirky alcohol restrictions.
Whether it's served neat, on the rocks, or in a cocktail, hard liquor is restricted to a 1.5-ounce serving. But in a cocktail, you can use 2.5 ounces of spirit in total, as long as the other ounce comes from a secondary spirit. "The one thing I always try to explain to our guests is, 'If you're looking for a stiff drink, you need to go after a cocktail, not just something neat to sip on,'" says Copper Common beverage director/bar manager Maureen Segrave-Daly. "I can't pour you two-and-half ounces of bourbon, but I can make you a bourbon cocktail with an ounce and a half of bourbon and an ounce of something else."
Theoretically, you can order an ounce-and-a-half of bourbon with a one-ounce chase of something else. You just can't have two servings of the same spirit, and the 2.5 ounce limit means there's no way to serve a "double" even if you could. "What's more difficult than anything else," says Segrave-Daly, "is explaining to someone why he can't get a double scotch, even though the person next to him has a scotch cocktail that's twice the size of a neat scotch."
Those restrictions mandate some creative cocktail recipes and constant experimentation. Read about more of the strange Utah liquor laws enacted by people who don’t drink alcohol at Eater. -via Digg
(Image credit: David Newkirk/Copper Common)
If you went into a bar and ordered a mixed drink, it wasn't going to happen. Unless you were a member of a private club, and brought in your own liquor, which you had to keep in a locker. Or if you went into one of those rare bars which had a state liquor licensed mini-bottle store. Want a Gin and tonic? This was the drill: You order the drink. Bartender fills a glass with ice, tonic water, and lime wedge. Meanwhile, you go to the mini-bottle counter and purchase your gin. Then you had to pour the gin in the glass yourself.
Where I live, which is not as religion-dominated as Utah, it took thirty years and dozens of referendums to repeal blue laws, because the anti-liquor vote is much better organized than the pro-liquor vote.