Andrew, Yes, one has to buy the Brewers Almanac or look at it in the library. And yes, beer-dry certainly doesn't imply spirits-dry. But beer-dry almost certainly implies liquor-dry, and hence beer-dry is a good indicator of dry-dry. Reflecting on "how dry is a dry county" makes me recall two wonderful and thought-provoking little papers: Cohn, David L., "A Little Prohibition in Mississippi," The Atlantic 203:57-59, (June) 1959. Adler, P.A., and Adler, P., "Dry With A Wink: Normative Clash and Social Order," Urban Life n.v.a.:123-139, 1983. Ron ---------- From: Andrew Barr <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Subject: dry counties Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 4:37 AM The table at the Beer Institute web site (which either my browser or the institute forbids me from consulting in detail) apparently lists the population of counties that are dry for beer sales. There are a lot more counties that are wet for beer but dry for spirits. The state with the most dry counties is Kentucky; when I wrote "Drink: a social history of America" (a year ago) 75 of its 121 counties were totally dry and a further 24 prohibited the sale of spirits but allowed wine and beer. This may have changed, as counties all across the country are increasingly voting to go wet, especially as rural areas are settled by people from cities and more conservative southern areas are settled by northerners. I also believe that the ridiculous restrictions on the sale and even the tasting of bourbon by distillers situated in dry counties have been eased a little. In 1997 Roger Brashears, the promotions manager of Jack Daniels, was asked by a visiting British journalist, who was amazed at the number of dry counties in Tennessee, whether anyone drank at all in the state. "Yes, ma'am," he replied. "It's just that we don't do it in front of each other." Andrew Barr.