OLCC softens hard liquor rules

SALEM — One sip of the 125-proof anise-flavored absinthe can annihilate the taste buds, dehydrate the cells and hurt the stomach.

Brad Irwin, with Oregon Spirit Distillers in Bend, recommends adding water. But that wasn’t allowed until recently by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s rules.

Liquor shops frequently host distillers who offer tastings to customers. In the past, distillers couldn’t add bloody mary mix to pepper vodka. Or even ice to cool the liquor down. It was straight up or not at all.

“Before, when people would do tastings, it would have to be room-temperature liquor, and how fun is that? Not so fun,” said OLCC spokeswoman Christie Scott. “So the change here is now you can actually do a tasting and have it be like a cocktail. It’s still a tasting, so it’s a small amount.”

Starting Sept. 1, distillers offering tastings in liquor stores can add ice, water or a mixer — as long as the hard alcohol volume doesn’t exceed a quarter ounce.

Scott said the rules are changing to keep up with the industry’s growth.

“Right now, we have this boom of Oregon distilleries,” she said. “We had the Oregon winery boom in the ’70s, and the micro-brews in the ’80s and now, it’s really the distilleries’ time. They are gaining momentum and going gangbusters in the state.”

Alan Dietrich, national sales manager with Bendistillery, said he thinks the change will make it easier for the micro-distilleries to sell their products. He complimented the OLCC on doing what it could to keep pace with what he called the “boutique spirits revolution in Oregon.”

Take Bendistillery’s hazelnut espresso vodka. Before, a potential customer would have to imagine how it might taste mixed with a little half and half. Not anymore. Now people can try what Dietrich called a “nutty Russian.”

“It works better in a cocktail,” he said.

Irwin said he thinks it would be tough to sell his soon-to-be-released “Absinthe Minded” if he couldn’t let customers sample it without diluting it with water.

“Nobody is going to drink it straight,” he said.

Scott said OLCC is trying to encourage the Oregon distillery boom.

In 2009, the liquor commission started letting the distilleries that offered tours in their buildings also offer tastings on site. The next logical step, she said, was to allow them to do the same in liquor stores. The OLCC was able to change the rules without going to lawmakers. At a public hearing, held before the rulemaking process can take effect, no one testified against the idea, Scott said.

Giorgio Roccasalva with Giorgio’s West Bend Liquor said the change will improve sales and be a game-changer.

“It’s going to open up a whole new tasting experience for the customer,” he said.

And he thinks it will help him sell more mixers, too.

“Let’s take my wife. She could not sample alcohol (straight),” he said. “But if it’s tequila in a margarita mix, it’s a whole different ballgame. I suspect that’s the same for many people.”