Over the last couple of years, a supposedly new industry has blossomed in the United States—direct to consumer alcohol delivery. Services like Postmates, Instacart, and Drizly all provide streamlined apps for thirsty consumers to order their next drink as easily as they might call an Uber. London based IWSR, a market analysis firm for the drinks business, values the global ecommerce alcohol business at 24 billion USD by the end of 2021. Surely lockdown and the pandemic have bolstered this growth as it is up 42% from 2020. By itself, the delivery company Drizly was acquired by Uber for $1.1 billion in February 2021. 

This is big money and perhaps a harbinger of a sea change in how we buy alcohol (and where we consume it) in the future. Bars and liquor stores now have to compete with alcohol sold directly to consumers and delivered to their doorstep. But just how new is this threat? As it turns out, this is the second wave of direct-to-consumer alcohol sales in the history of America’s booze industry. Back in the era of pre-prohibition, when dry laws differed by county and state, direct-to-consumer sales were common due to legal loopholes in dry states. Anyone in a dry state could purchase beer, wine, or spirits by mail from businesses operating in wet states. 

From the 1880s until 1913, Americans were buying alcohol in the mail in states where the sale of alcohol was prohibited. Liquor dealers advertised in newspapers or sent around circulars advertising their wares. They shipped the out-of-state hooch on the rails and they hired men known as drummers to take the orders for liquor before it was brought to the state. In his book Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment, Richard Hamm reports, “Other firms relied on soliciting drummers to generate their business. Such agents took ‘orders for liquor in every nook and corner of prohibition states.’ Students and others were recruited to work for commissions of 50¢ per gallon and $1.50 per case.” Railroads and other express services were complicit, although some stayed out of it. Wells Fargo would not carry liquor into the dry state of Kansas. Advocates of temperance and Prohibition who had worked so hard to make their states dry were furious.