Not a day goes by without someone asking us if we can ship product, why we don't ship product, and don't we know what opportunities we're missing by not allowing people to purchase spirits directly through our website. The answers are no, because it's not legal, and yes. Yes, we are acutely aware of the business we lose by not being able to have a full online store. We'd love to trundle off to FedEx every day with a truckful of Colkegan in plain brown boxes to be sent off around the country. We're not trying to circumvent the three-tier system, but the reality is that most small distilleries don't have distribution outside of our home states, and that distributors don't have room to carry every craft spirits that comes on the market.
Tom Potter well states the argument for allowing DTC shipping in his article.