The books / Selling from the Farm / chapter 13 of 14
Selling drink
All chapters
- The going rate
- A price has a shoulder
- What the road brings
- Regulars
- A new thing on the shelf
- Why a bargain spreads faster
- Pricing a jar so it sells out before the next crop
- The co-op is a valve
- Market day
- A shop of your own
- Signs, leaflets and adverts
- Selling by post
- Selling drink
- What a keeper is really choosing
Selling a bottle of mead is not selling honey with extra steps. Real jurisdictions treat it as alcohol the moment it leaves a cellar for money rather than a friend's glass:
- registration
- duty
- sometimes a licence for the place it is sold
On top of whatever a beekeeper already does to sell honey. That exists not because regulators dislike mead, but because the product changed, from a food to a drink, the moment a price was put on it.
The market changed with it too. A jar of honey needs no introduction at a farm gate; almost nobody expects a farm to sell a bottle of anything.