I find the Illinois liquor distribution laws a fascinating subject (Nicholas Day’s* cover story on why Bell’s left Illinois is one of my favorites that we’ve published), so I was equally entertained by this dispatch from the wonderful Indiana blogger James Briggs Stratton “Doghouse” Riley.
“… loudly appraised the clerk, myself, and everyone else in the joint how mind-blowingly unfathomable he found it that one ‘couldn’t buy cold beer in a gas station in Indiana.’ The clerk and I both looked at him as though he’d demanded to know why there wasn’t a haberdasher’s on the second floor, as in any decent dramshop or public house.”
* Full disclosure: He’s a friend who I knew before I ever started working here, but I think I can fairly and objectively say that he’s also a masterful food writer with a gift for illuminating the oft-ignored production chain.