Only One Liter of Livet In Texas
My husband likes Scotch whiskey. My future son-in-law also likes Scotch whiskey. We were in Mexico this weekend, and Dr. V was intrigued by the value of the Scotch at the duty-free shops. (Get the connection? He’s part Scottish; not only does he like bargains on his liquor, he saves ketchup packets and will squirt them into the fridge ketchup container annually.) Told we could legally take home 4 liters of Scotch whiskey, he snagged 4 liters at the duty-free store in Cabo and hauled ‘em home on the plane. Imagine our surprise when we passed through customs, our purchases clearly marked on the travel forms, to learn that the state of Texas will not allow more than 2 liters of liquor into this state from Mexico — one liter per person. As the customs agent told us, if we were connecting on to another flight to another state, we would have paid a small tariff and gone on our merry. The agents further told me that TABC recently cracked down on them for not being tough enough on Texas liquor law violations. “Do you see any TABC officials here?” asked the customs agent. His message: Texas was asking the feds to do their work, and they did not like it. Well yes, I agreed, I’d certainly rather have you guys checking for drugs and bombs, the really bad stuff, not two liters of Glen Livet. (So, um, can I have my booze and go home now?) Frustrated as they were, no shirking their jobs: $100 worth of Glen Livet was confiscated and poured down a sink at DFW. And we were not the only alcoholics dumb dumbs. Walking into the “serious” customs area, I saw piles of neatly packaged liquor bottles and knew we were in for it.
So I ask: why is Texas so weird about limiting liters of liquor? Why isn’t TABC policing throngs of tourists bringing home bargain booze from Mexico? Why force the U.S. Customs agents to diddle with dumping confiscated liquor down the drain at DFW and let them focus on TRUE contraband. And where do the drain lines at D/FW end up?
My best line during the fiasco: could you at least give it to a homeless person?
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Did you have to watch them pour that sweet whisky down the sink in front of you? If so, I’d ask to have them open the cabinet door under the sink to make sure there wasn’t a customs agent underneath, mouth on the drain!
I brought back 12 liters of booze from St John (6 each, me and my wife). They didn’t find the additional 3 in my suitcase.
Is it just Mexico, or is TABC cracking down on everyone?
I don’t think this is policed very stringently because we brought back about the same amount of booze from duty free as Candy did (flying thru the Cancun airport via Houston) and never had a problem.
We brought home 16 bottles of booze from Mexico in June. Had to pay a small fee but that was it.
Every time i come here I am not dissapointed, nice post