Poll: NJ Willing to Give Local Liquor a Chance

Most Garden State voters admit they’re not aware of a recent change in New Jersey law that allows for the small scale production of artisanal liquors, but they are game when it comes to giving these distillers a chance. That’s according to a new Fairliegh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released this morning.

“With the law going into effect on Dec. 1st, craft distillers are poised to benefit from the new opportunities for sales over the holiday shopping season,” said Krista Jenkins, director of PublicMind and professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. “New Jersey artisan distillers now have a more level playing field against, for example, Russian vodka.”

Seventy-one percent say they’ve heard nothing at all about recently passed legislation that makes it easier for craft distillers to buy a license at a greatly reduced rate, and produce up to 20,000 gallons of hard alcohol per year.

Assuming one drinks hard alcohol (43 percent), most (37 percent) say they would be willing to give artisan distillers a chance over large-scale, name brands, with significantly fewer (10 percent) who say they would not be willing to go local with their hard alcohol choice.

Maybe it’s true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The under 30 crowd is the most likely to say they would try a local label (50 percent), with the 60 and over crowd the least likely to say the same (22 percent).

The poll of 700 registered voters in New Jersey was conducted by telephone with both landline and cell phones from August 21 through August 27, 2013, and has a margin of error of +/-3.7 percentage points.