06/12/2025
Hi everyone!! ✨
I wanted to take a minute and talk about Indiana licensing. Trust me, it’s confusing and we went rounds with ATC, Excise, and even hired a lawyer to make sure we are doing everything accurately, and legally.
In Indiana, since we are unable to get a liquor license, we can only get a beer and wine permit or a couple can get a beer and wine permit if they want to save money and purchase their own alcohol. This is allowed for anything other than hard-liquor. Without a 3way license that either catering company or a brick and mortar can get, we cannot serve hard-liquor UNLESS on a private property. Weird, I know. Even with all the right certifications, insurance, years of experience, it doesn’t matter. This is just how Indiana operates.
People tend to get confused by this as far as how insurance can cover venues and guests. Whoever holds the permit gets the alcohol, and all are added to general and liquor liability insurance prior. We have all rights to serve if certified.
Now this is also why our events are mainly out of the state right now. Luckily we are very close to Ohio and Michigan. If you are in those states, as long as you supply it, we can serve whatever if we have insurance and certifications. These are just the states we are closest to… ALL other states operate this way. Except for Indiana…
So Indiana rules and regulations do get very confusing. Excise hates to see my emails coming 🤣🤣. I asked so many questions and often repeated some because so many people are confused by how this all works. Each district can be different too 🙄. Rest assured, we follow the rules as silly as they may be. But what I have found is many venues don’t understand this, and that’s not their fault. Depending on the questions they ask or who they ask, they could get the wrong information because many don’t know. They are just used to working through catering companies or restaurants, so as a bar service like myself which is outside of those realms, we are a newer concept.
Despite some of these setbacks we have over 10 events and weddings booked this year! I am very excited how things are going in our first year of business. We won’t let these setbacks get us down, and we hope one day Indiana gets it together 🙂.
We only have a couple weekends open the rest of the season this year! Reach out to learn more!