What Constitutes "intoxicating Liquor"
Unlike many states, the alcohol laws of Missouri do not differentiate between types of alcohol based on the percentage of alcohol in a given beverage. Missouri's Liquor Control Law covers any "alcohol for beverage purposes, alcohol, spiritous, vinous, fermented, malt, or other liquors, or combination of liquors, a part of which is spiritous, vinous, or fermented, and all preparations or mixtures for beverage purposes, containing in excess of one-half of one percent by volume." Thus, the Liquor Control Law covers any type of alcoholic beverage which contains more than 0.5% alcohol by volume.
Until recently, there was a separate regulation for beer containing at least 0.5% alcohol by volume and at most 3.2% alcohol by weight, which was classified as "nonintoxicating beer" (rather than a liquor) and was subject to a separate law from the Liquor Control Law. For a long time, however, the Nonintoxicating Beer Law was rarely invoked, as the Liquor Control Law's permissive sale provisions for any alcoholic beverage made so-called "three-two beer" a rarity in Missouri. The Missouri General Assembly repealed it in August 2009. The Liquor Control Law now controls all alcoholic beverages containing more than 0.5% alcohol by volume.
Any beverage containing less than 0.5% alcohol by volume (including low alcohol beer) is expressly exempt from all alcohol regulation in Missouri (including age restrictions), and is subject only to ordinary food safety laws.
Read more about this topic: Alcohol Laws Of Missouri
Famous quotes containing the words intoxicating liquor, constitutes, intoxicating and/or liquor:
“I believe that the miseries consequent on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors are so great as imperiously to command the attention of all dedicated lives; and that while the abolition of American slavery was numerically first, the abolition of the liquor traffic is not morally second.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“You do not really wish to hear more of the Battle of Kadesh. Let me say only that human fat, gorged in considerable quantity, has an intoxicating effect. I became ... drunk.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The liquor of summer nights
Accumulates in the bottom of the bottle.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)