🥃 Control State Spirits Price Lists

🥃 Control State Spirits Price Lists - Complete Reference

Scale with bottles and money thumbnail for an article talking about liquor price lists

Per the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, 17 and jurisdictions in Alaska, Maryland, Minnesota and South Dakota adopted various forms of the traditional "Control" model. Those governments entirely control the sale of distilled spirits and, occasionally, wine and beer through at the wholesaler level. 13 of those entities also control retail sales for off-premises consumption; either through government-operated package stores or licensed agents.

Control states are a mixed blessing: consumers get pricing consistency and some assurances on quality, but may pay overall higher prices or see strange product allocation practices. This page will focus on the former advantage, transparency. Most alcohol control boards publish a good deal of price and sales data freely on the internet. Iowa has the most robust feature set and has public APIs for both pricing and actual sales data.

By looking through these datasets, savvy consumers can:

Assess what bottles may be the best price in each jurisdiction
Potentially derive a good approximation for the price direct from the distiller
Indulge in a fun free dataset for basic analytics and data science learning by those of-age

This page lists the various state control entities publicly available liqour price catalogs.

State Spirits Price Lists

Each section below will link a given state with the relevant supporting documents. More states and links will be added as I find them. In general, I recommend sources which allow for full Excel, CSV, or Text file download. None of the below links require a login.

Alabama

Alabama's ABC Board produces both Excel and PDF full files of its spirits price lists. You can can also view calendars for their release of allocated products.

Idaho

Idaho's State Liquor Division publishes price change and information in a PDF as well as additional context and a pricing calculator.

Iowa

Iowa provides an excellent liquor price book that is also available on Data.gov. The data view through data.iowa.com is a nice searchable interface that supports API access and even includes a query builder. Five Stars Iowa!

Michigan

Michigan's Licensing and Regulatory affairs division publishes a monthly price book and list of price changes in both PDF and Excel Formats.

Michigan Spirits Price Book - You can download the retail price information at this link. I prefer the Excel format for easy searching.

Liquor Control Price Search Tool - This online tool allows you to look up specific bottles, though it is much more cumbersome than just downloading the full file.

They also provide directions on how to access the data programmatically from a text file which is updated monthly.

Mississippi

MS makes monthly PDF format reports of spirits pricing activity as well as quarterly price changes on the Department of Revenue website.

Montana

Montana's Department of Revenue makes its product price list (called Price Disks) available on a monthly basis in Excel and Text file formats. There are also reports covering product updates and distillery sales.

North Carolina

NC provides an easy to use price search tool. You can filter and download any selections to Excel. They also provide a handout format pdf.

New York

While NY doesn't make things as easy as others, they do provide a price lookup per distributor. You will need to know who the local distributor is for a major brand, but can likely still find what you're looking for with some trial and error.

Oregon

The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission makes a large amount of information available online, including current price lists in both CSV and PDF formats. You can also view liquor sales data in an interactive dashboard.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania produces quarterly price listings in a PDF format which can be used in conjunction with the Annual Report for Method and Rationale for Product pricing to gain a reasonable understanding on what producer direct pricing looks like.

Utah

Utah's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services has monthly price lists in PDF format, not the most workable.

Virginia

VA provides quarterly price lists in both PDF and Excel formats for download, in addition to monthly specials listings. Alternatively, you can access all products through the web store. Virginia does not upcharge allocated or scarce products, so there are deals to be found!

🍺 Definitive Light Beer Tier List: Meta-Analysis & Ranking

Trends come and go: Craft Beer, Hard Seltzer, Canned Cocktails, and more. In the world of beverage, the currents are constantly shifting, but one drink has an irrevocable grip on America: Light Beer. Good old beer flavored beer may take a hit from new competition, but brands like Miller Lite and Michelob Ultra constantly sit at the top of sales volume lists, even with the fall of Bud Light and rise of Modelo's Flagship. But which light beer is best? Let's find out. Methodology - Light Beer Ranking Taste preferences vary significantly between consumers, but across a large sample we should be able to get a somewhat representative picture of the populations preferences. For this ranking, we will combine data sourced from multiple beer rating sites with an internal Castle & Cairn house ranking to create an overall beer quality score. The starting population of beer brands will be those that are explicitly branded as "flagship light" or beers with less than 100 calor...

🍺 Costco's Kirkland Vintage Ale 2025 - Review & Tasting Notes

Fall is in the air, and that means we have yet another year of Kirkland's Vintage Ale! Brewed proudly by Deschutes (pronounced "Da-Shootz") in Bend, Oregon, this Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout spends nine months in the wood, picking up what the whiskey left behind (mostly vanillin and tannins). Bottled over the summer, this particular beer is from Lot B. Neither Costco nor the packaging give us much additional detail beyond the ABV and style. I remember finding last year 's edition to be solid but nothing to write home about, fairly dry but a pleasant pour. The use of the work "vintage" to me implies that some changes may be made year-to-year but we'll have to see if our taste buds can help us validate. How does the 2025 vintage fair? 💅Style: Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout 🛒Sourced: $7.99 Costco, GA for a 22oz bottle. $2 cheaper than the 2024 edition! 💥Hops: Not Mentioned sadly. Other ingredients include chocolate malt, milled oats and Dutc...

🥃 Review #40: Kirkland Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2024)

Like Costco's other Scotches, the Kirkland Signature Islay Single Malt is bottled for Alexander Murray and imported by MISA Imports after being distilled and aged in Scotland (TTB.gov plant registry TX-I-1277). The isle of Islay is one of the southern most islands in Scotland and is one of the five whisky regions ensconced in law. There are only nine active distilleries on the island, and the Islay style is typified by strong peat or smoky flavors. As a single malt, we know that the juice in this bottle comes entirely from one of those nine! All of the distilleries are significantly smaller than Glenlivet and many of the mainland producers. Taste testing has people split between Caol Illa, Bruichladdich (Port Charlotte), and Bunnahabhain as being the source. Caol Illa and Laphroig both have done deals for private brand scotch without rights to name the source distillery, but Laphroig does not match the flavor profile for this bottle. Realistically, Caol Illa is the most likely cand...

🥃 Best Bourbons at Every Price Point Guide - Updated for 2025

Bourbon, America's native spirit, offers a wide range of flavors and experiences. Bourbon hunters scour the shelves for rare or premium offerings but a rising tide lifts all ships. Whether you're a seasoned connoisseur or just starting your bourbon journey, there's a perfect bottle out there for you, and at a price that fits your wallet. Here's a quick guide to some of the best bourbons at various price points in 2025 that you won't have to search all over the world to find. Methodology Pricing will be for $750ml bottles of bourbon since that size the most widely available. Similarly, I am only bringing in bottles that can be readily found in the market (proxying this by using the stock from my local Total Wine for the base catalog and pricing unless noted). The best bourbon in the world isn't the best bourbon in YOUR world if you can't reasonably find it. Additionally, chosen bottles must be versatile enough to be consumed straight or neat as well as in a ...

🥃Review #53: Costco's Kirkland 15YR Highland Single Malt Scotch - 2025

The 2025 release of Costco's Kirkland 15-year Highland Scotch hit shelves in late January and is a recurring installment on an annual cadence. The first pallet to hit my local store sold out almost immediately. Thankfully, we got two more shipments at one pallet each that hung around a bit longer and I was able to snag a bottle. Like in previous years, this Highland Scotch is finished in sherry casks. Alexander Murray & Co. is the bottler with MISA imports out of Texas bringing it to the States for consumption (Costco's standard sourcing pattern for Scotch). The bottle has a nice heft to it and there is an ensconced Alexander Murray Lion adding some nice texture to the front of the bottle. Steve Lipp, CEO of Alexander Murray, calls it "Perfect for after dinner drinking." All-in-all, this shows an attempt to elevate the product and presentation from the ubiquitous blends and non-age stated iterations you'll sometimes find under the Kirkland label. Neither Alex...

Castle & Cairn

Search This Blog