When liquor stores receive new shipments of wine and beer no one has ever heard of, there is the question of how to promote those new items.
One method of promotion is tasting sessions, where people can come in and try different drinks without having to buy them first.
Wine tasting can be done in the comfort of one's own home and in liquor stores.
The situation for beer, however, is a little different.
Matt Prchal, manager for Friendly Package Liquors, said state regulations require beer-tasting sessions to be conducted in the store and not in people's homes.
In both cases, tastings in the store are free of charge. To have wine tastings in the home, however, Prchal said there is an estimated cost of about $50 for two hours and then another $20 per hour.
Matt Lemberger, general manager for Dill Street Bar & Grill, said no one has come to him with opportunities to have beer- and wine-tasting sessions that would help to benefit Dill Street in the way of profits.
Dill Street has never before had a tasting session, but Lemberger said he thought something like this could be beneficial in the future.
Friendly Package frequently has wine- and beer-tasting sessions to promote its new stock.
"Basically, every second and fourth Saturday we do wine tastings and have three to five different wines on sale those times," Prchal said.
Friendly Package also has a larger wine-tasting session twice year and has samples of about 50 different wines.
Some of the newer trends in wine preferences are wines from other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, Prchal said.
Prchal said one of the more popular trends with college students and beer tasting is mixing and matching of six-packs so people can get different varieties without having to buy a six-pack of each.
Lemberger said most college students who come to Dill Street usually buy what's the least expensive and generally prefer light beer and the evening's drink special.
Mike DeWeese, owner and beer consultant for BW-3 said the bar did plenty of beer tastings when it first opened to give people an idea of what BW-3 would carry, but he does more private tasting sessions for various clients than public ones.
BW-3 does its own beer-tasting sessions, and some locations in Muncie carry beers that can't be found around most of the country in order to give more variety to customers.
"The downtown location has 42 beers on tap," DeWeese said.
One beer he mentioned comes from Three Floyd's Brewery in Hammond and has an alcohol content of nine percent, a percentage DeWeese said is high for most beers.
"I've been brewing for eight years," he said. "Nobody has the guts to carry that type of beer."
DeWeese said the higher the alcohol content, the more flavor a beer has, and the same is true with most wines.
Even with all of the different and stronger beers BW-3 carries, DeWeese said most patrons drink Bud Light, a brand he said is the top beer in the nation.
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