[Sca-cooks] Beverages, was Royal authenticity

[Lorenz Wieland]

lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
> Brangwayna wrote:
>>  Clearly, England has the concept of a cut-off line between
>>  when something is alcohol and when it's not based on the
>>  percentage.  Do we here in the US?
>
> I confess not to be a lawyer and therefore not to be a good resource
> on this, but i will pipe in anyway to say that i think this would
> vary state by state, and in some places, county by county.

Indeed it does.  The only two consistent alcohol laws mandated by the
Federal government are a minimum drinking age of 21 and, more recently, a
DUI definition of 0.08% BAL.

The closest thing to a standard for what constitutes an alcoholic beverage I
can find seems to be anything with one-half of one percent alcohol or
greater.  Some states (Colorado and Utah) have separate laws regarding who
can sell watered-down 3.2% beer versus normal strength beer or cider.  Most
states make some distinction, at least for purposes of taxation, between
beer, wine, and hard liquor.

-Lorenz