no id for buying booze online? what do you think?

so today i got a shipment of two bottles of old armagnac in the mail from a fairly large internet mailorder wine/spirits distributor. the forms you fill out on the order page extensively question your age and the legality of you purchasing the alcohol, and i was told that i would be required to provide id to the delivery person or i would not be able to recieve the package.

the box it came in had a big label on it declaring the box contained alcohol and that the delivery person was not to give it to me without first seeing proper id.

well, this morning when he came and rang the doorbell i was in the middle of changing and had not expected it to arrive so quickly. when i got to the door the delivery person (and truck) were already gone in true ups/fedex fashion. the package was left by the bushes outside our front door. no signature, no id, nothing had been provided as i'd been told i would have to.

perhaps its the indiscretion of the individual delivery person, or perhaps its policy to just leave such packages anyway. i dont know if this would happen every time or not....


but the fact of the matter is any of the information i used for the online forms could have been fabricated with the exception of payment info, which says nothing more than that i'm old enough to have a bank card (16 year olds can have cards)

though i'm 21 and broke no laws, it raises some questions if you can so easily purchase booze without having to actually provide id. it was delivered to my doorstep in a matter of about 3 days. now i'm a strong believer in lowering the drinking age, but that doesnt mean that businesses should be run in illogical and possibly illegal manners. whether it was the fault of the store or the fault of the delivery service or both is besides the point - the point is any 16 year old with a credit card and get all the liquor they want if they know where to look, and they dont even need a fake id.


what do you all think about this?

btw, while i think 21 is too high of a drinking age, i'm not about to help minors get alcohol, so don't ask what the site was either publicly or privately, because i quite simply won't help.

 

i'm thinking it was just the delivery guy. i haven't tried buying liqour or beer online yet, but i believe in your case it was just that the delivery guy didn't follow the protocol.

but if not, i can see this getting exploited.

 

well, i'd heard of things like this a lot over the past few years, with alarmist news reporting that minors were buying alcohol online all the time and that a real id is very rarely ever actually asked for, and that it's quite easy for minors to purchase alcohol this way.

i think its the delivery person's mistake to not ask, but at the same time i cant remember the last time i got to the door when the person was still there. they have a LOT of packages to deliver, and i think its standard practice in most cases to just leave the package at the door 90% of the time. i buy stuff online a lot (mostly tobacco) and cant remember the last time i had to sign for something or verify who i was or my age.

i've heard things to the effect that the government is "cracking down" on such services, yet more and more states are allowing online alcohol purchases....i'd think that they would become stricter about requiring an id....

oh well, who cares. i now have two seriously discounted bottles of 1982 armagnac......not that i know anything about brandy. but this stuff tastes nice....way better than the cognac i bought at the store for over twice the price i paid for these, anyway. normally this stuff runs about 30 bucks for a fifth, but the distillery is out of business and the bottles are now going for about 10 bucks....figured it would be nice to use for liqueurs even if i didnt end up liking it by itself.

this morning i stated macerating a bunch of fresh cherries in it, along with a tiny bit of whole allspice berries, some vanilla, and some cherry juice concentrate....about a fifth (maybe a little more) of brandy altogether and some simple syrup. in a week or so i'll strain and filter it, add some more syrup if need be, bottle it and allow it to mature for a month or two before use. i think it should be pretty good.