I Moved To The QC From a Dry County

For starters, if you don't know what a 'dry county' is, it's a county that will not allow alcohol sales without a permit.

I'm not kidding, they exist, and I'm from one in Arkansas.

In a dry county like mine, you cannot buy alcohol in a store.

Basically, a restaurant must pay a pretty good chunk of money to get and maintain their 'liquor license'. The state's Alcoholic Beverage Control board governs this. Restaurants generally aren't allowed to openly advertise their liquor specials and I've seen several local spots get fined when they did. However, a lot of restaurants do have liquor licenses and sell alcohol. That's why I call the county "damp".

No, it's not like old-school prohibition and they won't raid your house or apartment to seize your vodka.

Within the state, there are even some wet counties that have exceptions.

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I moved to the QC (Davenport specifically) earlier this week and, as you can probably guess, snap it's a hugely different approach to alcohol here. I could buy wine in a grocery store, which would absolutely not happen in my home county. Pubs and bars can openly tout booze specials. The years-long argument over wet vs. dry doesn't exist in the QC.

As a lover of cocktails, I'm 110% fine with this.

It's not that we can't drink at home, it's just not sold in stores. We have a saying called "going down the road". If I'm "going down the road", that means I'm driving to a liquor store in a neighboring wet county. It can be a 45-minute long endeavor.

Just recently, my hometown's college team was allowed to sell alcohol at football games. This is a notable step for us.

It's exciting to try life in a new place that has so many craft breweries and different events that feature cash bars.

So cheers, QC. I can't wait to get to know you.