Utah's Straw Test Crackdown

Utah is known for many things—beautiful mountains, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mitt Romney—but it truly distinguishes itself when it comes to notoriously ridiculous alcohol laws. While the state's so-called "Zion Curtain" has widely been considered one of the dumbest booze rules in America, it turns out there is no limit on inane drinks laws in the Beehive State. In fact, state regulators have recently upped their bureaucratic ante by cracking down on bartenders who use a "straw test" to sample cocktails before serving.

As one might notice when visiting a cocktail bar, the straw test is a common technique used by bartenders to determine whether their drinks are satisfactory before serving them to a customer. One conducts a straw test by dipping the end of a straw into a drink, placing a thumb or forefinger over the other end, and then tasting the tiny amount of liquid trapped in the straw. The test is efficient and provides a hygienic method for performing quality-control checks on libations.

The straw test is highly useful for establishments that frequently invent and serve newly created cocktail recipes. It's also a go-to for "bartender roulette"—often popular at high-end mixology bars—whereby a customer describes what types of flavors they like and then the bartender riffs off that inspiration to whip up a brand-new cocktail on the spot. If a bartender has literally just created a new drink, he or she obviously wants to be able to ensure it tastes palatable before pushing it across the bar to a patron.

But Utah liquor regulators are taking issue with this long-used practice. According to Axios, bar owners in the state have noticed a marked uptick in Utah's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) agents warning them against utilizing the straw test.

As one Utah bar owner said: "For some reason recently, they have decided that they wanted to let us know that it's absolutely not OK, even though it's something that they know [bars have] been doing for years."

DABS notes that the law has been on the books for decades—curiously tucked into a section of the state code prohibiting minors from serving alcohol to restaurant customers—and that it's unsure of the recent "confusion" around the ban on straw tests. A department spokesperson did admit, however, that the agency has been seeking to "improve communication" with alcohol license holders regarding state alcohol rules, according to Axios.

Such bureaucracy-speak obscures the potential repercussions at stake. Running afoul of the straw test ban constitutes a "serious violation," which can result in a fine of up to $3,000 and a 30-day suspension of a bar's liquor license—a near death warrant in the hypercompetitive restaurant industry.

To be fair, Utah is not alone in its prohibition of straw tests—Oregon also bans taste tests for liquor, while confusingly allowing bartenders to taste beer and wine—but it appears to be particularly zealous in its enforcement of the law as well as its stubbornness in maintaining it. Other states with similar rules, such as Oklahoma, have moved to repeal their version once it became apparent that it was needlessly hindering bartenders.

The apparent rationale behind the ban is that bartenders need to be prevented from becoming inebriated during shifts given their responsibility to safely serve customers. But it would be essentially impossible to get drunk off the straw test. Axios actually conducted its own experiments (who says journalism can't be fun?) and found that it took 70 straw tests in a row (from a 4 oz martini) to fill up a 1 oz. jigger with liquid. For context, most bartenders perform no more than 30 straw tests over the course of an entire night and often much fewer.

This ban is a cocktail of nonsense, and Utah should repeal it.