Only In Massachusetts: Why Is The Liquor Store Called The Packie?

Only In Massachusetts is an occasional series where Patch tries to find answers to questions about life in Massachusetts. Have a question about the Bay State that needs answering? Send it to dave.copeland@patch.com.

In North Carolina they call it the ABC store, and in Pennsylvania, it's the "state store." Michigan residents make runs to the "party store." And in Massachusetts, the liquor store is known as the "packie," short for "package store."

If you ever asked where our slang term came from, you were probably told it's because the Boston Brahmins wanted drinking to be discreet. So, the story goes, they used their clout to get laws passed requiring liquor to be packaged discreetly in nondescript, brown paper after it was sold.

Hence, the package store.

But food historian Robert F. Moss says that origin story came from the historical research method he calls "just making stuff up." That story, after all, doesn't explain why the term is also used in South Carolina, where the Brahmins had no influence over lawmakers.

"It has nothing to do with the brown paper bags that liquor bottles are wrapped in but rather the legal twists and dodges," Moss wrote in explaining the use of the term in South Carolina.

The real story stems from entrepreneurs who found a loophole in liquor laws in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

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Up until the 20th century, brewers and distillers didn't ship their products in bottles, as stoppers and caps had not been perfected and the bottles would leak during shipping. Instead, they sent kegs and barrels, and it was up to the local seller to repackage them into bottles.

Several states, including South Carolina, set themselves up as middlemen in the transaction, passing "dispensary laws" making the state the only entity that could repackage the bulk shipments into bottles for retail sale. Moss writes that retailers looked for ways around the laws and finally found one when they read Leisy v. Hardin, an 1890 Supreme Court decision.

Gus Leisy was a brewer in Illinois and shipped beer to Iowa which, at the time, was a dry state. A city marshal seized the beer and Leisy sued. Federal law did not prohibit importing alcohol across state lines, and the Supreme Court ruled local authorities could not seize alcohol still in its "original package."

"Original Package Stores" popped up in Iowa, Kansas and other dry states right after the ruling. To meet the letter of the law, some distillers shipped liquor bottles loose in rail cars and packed in sawdust; boxing them up in a case, they worried, would make the case and not the bottle the "original package."

A later, 1897 federal court ruling clarified the rules for states that allowed alcohol sales, like Massachusetts and South Carolina, and the court's opinion also used the "original package store" wording. The legal challenges continued right up until Prohibition, but the name package store stuck.

After prohibition, when states revised liquor laws, many used the "original package store" in the rules. But the post-Prohibition rules were aimed at protecting consumers: requiring liquor stores to sell products in their original packaging prevented owners from watering down the product when they transferred it to bottles.

It's worth noting that while South Carolina residents use the term package store, they are more likely to use the term "red dot store" as most liquor stores have three red dots on their signs. Massachusetts, and certain parts of states bordering Massachusetts, are the only areas of the country where people still prefer to make "packie runs."

Dave Copeland is Patch's regional editor for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).