Bars Can Continue To Sell Take-Out Cocktails
So maybe Iowa isn’t so backward after all.
Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed a bill allowing bar to sell alcoholic drinks to go on a permanent basis and it passed through the state House and Senate in a landslide along the lines of the Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Rutgers.
The score in the Senate was 44-4 and in the House it was a rout, 96-zip.
“Iowa’s hospitality businesses have suffered greatly due to the harsh financial impacts of COVID-19,” Dale Szyndrowski, vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council of the US (DISCUS )state government relations, said in a statement. “Making cocktails to-go permanent provides a much-needed source of stability and revenue for local bars, restaurants and distilleries as they begin to recover.”
The bill allows bars to sell alcoholic beverages, mixed drinks and cocktails for carry-out and delivery, something that was started by not just Iowa but most states during the COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions.
Kate Willer, general manager of Bubba, 200 10th St.in Des Moines, called it a “great move for Iowa beverage culture” in an interview with the Des Moines Register. Bubba, which is a Southern-themed restaurant, sells not just cocktail to go but even sells growlers, like a brewpub. Called “Crowlers,”they are large cans that contain five or six servings of a cocktail.
Other bars have delivery and carry-out options that range from ingredients to make DYI cocktails or provide drinks-to-go in mason jars and flasks. The drinks must have some sort of lid on them and you must wait until you get home to consume them. That includes while driving home, of course.
Iowa has always been a place with a good party school scene and now, as it turns out, it’s a pretty good party state, too.
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