I'm not sure that's the entirely the case, given that, when I was a kid, you couldn't buy non-distilled beverages at the grocery store either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_sta...

Temperance related measures post-Volstead - an insidious loophole to appease the Bible Belt whereby liquour is specifically exempted from the federal oversight of interstate commerce.

I believe there's some relation between this and federal highway funding being tied to a minimum drinking age of 21, but I may be misremembering some half-read magazine article.

I believe it’s drinking age and breath limit thresholds thanks to MADD.

Tangential—methanol poisoning from an improper brewing or distilling process is largely, maybe completely, a myth. Where toxicity events have occurred they are almost always deliberate or accidental adulteration, e.g. fortifying moonshine with industrially "denatured" (deliberately poisoned) alcohol. There has been a lot of sloppy journalism in such cases that doesn't question the myth, as well as Prohibition-era propaganda that lives on to this day.

Great Reddit discussion about this: https://old.reddit.com/r/firewater/comments/9p1fwe/methanol_...

TIL. That said, I hadn't anticipated much rational in Prohibition rationale. The thread did support my suspicion that grappa hangovers are their own special category of hell though!

Most Nordic countries also have a state monopoly on alcohol, and these are as first-world as it gets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinmonopolet

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BAsdrekkas%C3%B8la_Land...