Beverage cold storage clauses should do more than name a temperature. They should assign responsibility, preserve evidence and explain who pays when the cold chain fails. Nic’s Beverages learned how expensive the missing pieces can become. In Nic’s Beverages, LLC v. Waco Bottling LLC, a Texas appellate court affirmed no-evidence summary judgment on a supplier’s contract and negligence claims involving two shipments totaling 80,000 pounds of CBD-infused cold brew.

A failed software upgrade, 200,000 undelivered cases of alcohol, and a federal court decision that could change how retailers approach control-state distribution contracts. Mississippi restaurants and liquor stores spent much of early 2026 confronting a problem that no retailer should face: they ordered alcohol, paid for it, and then waited weeks for deliveries that never arrived. And because Mississippi operates a control-state distribution system, retailers couldn't simply call another wholesaler.

An agency should not escape an otherwise valid negligence claim merely by sending a letter announcing its mistake. Yet a recent TTB permit termination dispute pushes federal immunity in that direction, treating restrictions on a distillery’s approval access as part of the government’s misinformation rather than separate conduct. For suppliers and wholesalers, that distinction could determine whether a damages claim reaches the merits.

Part 2 of 2: The price-discrimination settlement. A wholesaler’s price book can show the same offer to every customer while rebates, credits, and qualification rules deliver a very different deal. Southern Glazer’s FTC complaint and the newly issued proposed settlement give wholesalers a reason to examine that gap—not to abandon legitimate discounts, but to understand who can obtain them and what supports the resulting price differences.

Part 1 of 2: The non-prosecution agreement. A supplier’s approval of a marketing billback does not tell a wholesaler whether the event happened, who actually benefited, or where unused money went. Southern Glazer’s non-prosecution agreement shows how certain employees, supplier representatives and vendors exploited those gaps to turn promotional spending into personal benefits. For other wholesalers, the agreement offers something more useful than a collection of embarrassing anecdotes: specific practices to recognize and weaknesses to test in their own operations.

What good is a statutory right to cure a breach if a supplier can bypass it simply by waiting another thirty days? Coors Distributing’s lawsuits against Crown/Constellation and Mark Anthony Brands bring that question into focus. CDC alleges the suppliers are ending decades-long relationships without cause and seeks injunctions while the disputes proceed toward arbitration. Law 360 and Beer Business Daily…

Manufacturers and distributors spend plenty of time convincing retailers to carry their products. But what happens when the liquor authority presses the retailer to stock the home-state competition? That question is at the center of the surviving claim in Cayuga Nation v. New York State Liquor Authority, No. 5:25-cv-01312, 2026 WL 2859177 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 23, 2026). The court concluded that the plaintiffs “have plausibly alleged that Defendants’ denial of the liquor license application discriminated against interstate commerce.” For out-of-state suppliers, the interesting issue is how a retail licensing decision can become a barrier to getting their bottles on shelves.

A supplier certificate in one company and a wholesale license in another can look tidy on an organizational chart and provide easy access to markets. In Massachusetts, common ownership of two such companies put a distributor’s license at risk even after the supplier surrendered its certificate. Manufacturers and distributors operating through affiliates should pay attention. In Monsieur Touton Selection of Massachusetts, Ltd.

If a licensed cannabis business agrees to buy a grower’s harvest and then backs out when prices fall, it is hard to see why the buyer should escape its purchase commitment by pointing out that both sides were engaged in the very business Michigan licensed them to conduct. Yet that is the practical result of Hello Farms Licensing MI, LLC v.

Can a supplier line up a replacement distributor and then argue that the replacement has no real legal stake in the outgoing distributor’s lawsuit? That argument ran into trouble in an Ohio dispute over Jacob’s Creek wines. The federal court’s response captured the problem neatly: “Vinarchy has it backwards.” Opinion at 11. In Esber Beverage Co. v. Vinarchy North America, Inc.

There is an old move in appellate practice: when the facts do not go your way, make the case sound bigger than the facts. Call it a split. Call it sovereignty. Call it the sky falling. That is what Ohio is trying to do in its new cert petition in Yost v. Miller and House of Glunz. Ohio says the…

Ohio can regulate hemp. Ohio can regulate intoxicating cannabinoids. Ohio can decide that certain products are too risky, too strong, too attractive to minors, or too poorly tested to be sold in the state. What Ohio cannot do, at least according to a new temporary restraining order from the Northern District of Ohio, is build a hemp regime that gives Ohio-licensed, Ohio-sourced, Ohio-distributed cannabis businesses the market while shutting out federally lawful hemp products moving in interstate commerce.

States defending local alcohol privileges often try to draft around the dormant Commerce Clause with a delivery distinction. They do not always write that only in-state breweries, wineries, or distilleries may ship. Instead, they create a delivery, shipping, self-distribution, or direct-sale privilege and then say the privilege may be exercised only through the permit holder’s own employees. That sounds neutral. It usually isn’t.

Illinois liquor distributors, importing distributors, manufacturers, RTD cocktail producers, and alcohol brand owners should be paying close attention to the Illinois Department of Revenue’s proposed amendments to 86 Ill. Adm. Code 420. The proposal is being presented as an update to Illinois’ Liquor Control Act rules and liquor gallonage tax administration. But for many Illinois alcohol businesses, especially those dealing in ready-to-drink cocktails, spirit-based seltzers…

If you sell, distribute, manufacture, or simply enjoy hemp-derived THC beverages in Illinois, the clock may be ticking faster than you think. On May 20, 2026, Rep. Will Guzzardi, joined by Justin Slaughter, Bob Morgan, Kevin John Olickal, Lisa Davis, Barbara Hernandez, and Sharon Chung, filed HB 5784 — a 561-page cannabis omnibus bill that would do many things, but one thing in particular should have the hemp beverage industry’s full attention.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in State Tax Assessor v. Fifth Generation, Inc., 2026 ME 30, should get the attention of beer, wine, and spirits manufacturers, importers, and distributors. The case involved Fifth Generation, Inc., the Texas-based S corporation behind Tito’s Vodka, which had no Maine real estate, did not hold itself out to the public as doing business in Maine, and did not file Maine pass-through-entity withholding or income tax returns for the 2011–2017 audit period.

The Supreme Court took a pass on retailer direct shipping. And with that, the Henny-Penny chorus warning that Tennessee Wine meant the sky was falling on the three-tier system will need a new weather report. On May 18, 2026, the Court denied certiorari in Day v. Henry, No. 25-788, the Arizona retailer-shipping case out of the Ninth Circuit, and…

Every once in a while competing alcohol brands get into a dispute over advertising that turns into a useful lesson about how far “first” claims can go before they become actionable false advertising. We have been following one of those fights for a few years now: the dispute between Victory Global, LLC, doing business as Brough Brothers Distillery, and Fresh Bourbon, LLC, over competing claims tied to being Kentucky’s first African American-owned bourbon distillery.

Watch retailer direct-shipping litigation long enough and you start to recognize the rhythm. Out-of-state wine retailer sues. Consumer plaintiff says he wants bottles he cannot get locally. State says three-tier system. Wholesalers say accountability, inspection, tax collection, underage drinking, orderly markets, and the unquestionable legitimacy of the distribution model. Court nods solemnly. Tennessee Wine gets quoted. Granholm gets distinguished. And the challenger loses.

A bar called “The Barber Shop” should not need a barber license. That ought to be the easy part. And yet, in Osteria Segreto, LLC v. Hilgers, a Nebraska federal court denied a preliminary injunction sought by an Omaha cocktail bar that wanted to keep using the name “The Barber Shop Blackstone,” barber-pole imagery, and barber-themed décor without obtaining a barber-shop license.

Every alcohol licensee knows the knock. A liquor investigator, police officer, excise agent, revenue agent, or local enforcement official walks into the licensed premises and asks to inspect records, walk the warehouse, look behind the bar, review invoices, pull POS data, examine delivery logs, ask for employee records, look at surveillance video, or open the back office. Most bars, restaurants, retailers, distributors, breweries, wineries, and distilleries assume the same thing: we hold a state liquor license, so the state can search whatever it wants.

Distributors already know what happens when a supplier moves a brand. Everybody rushes to fair market value, inventory, depletion, transition timing, and customer handoff. The paperwork often follows the same script. A brand transfer agreement sets the mechanics, the parties fight over value if they have to, and the money changes hands. A recent Washington decision shows that this process deserves a harder look.

Craft brewing grew up on beer-and-a-handshake deals. An artist liked the brewery, liked the founders, liked the project, and put pen to paper before anybody thought about diligence schedules, disclosure letters, or chain-of-title memos. Those days are not gone. They probably never will be. And that is not entirely a bad thing. The brewing industry would lose something real if every early-stage collaboration had to start with a stack of paper and a call to counsel.

Chicago zoning fights rarely end with a single hearing. Our recent win for Marigrow (link to Illinois 1st District appellate opinion (rule 23 order) regarding this cannabis zoning matter originiating from a hearing and win at the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals) proves that point. What started as a challenge to a special use permit for an adult-use cannabis dispensary at 2573-81 North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago…