On Cinco de Mayo, if tequila is your drink instead of beer, in most of America you'll have a harder time finding a restaurant or store that sells Don Julio instead of just Corona.

Full liquor licenses are more limited and more expensive than beer & wine licenses, plus some states still observe "Sunday laws" - that restrict the sale of all alcohol, but are more restrictive of alcohol containing more than four percent alcohol by weight. Experts in the booze business say there is a leftover stigma from the days of prohibition.

For most of the 20th Century, companies making hard liquor followed a self-imposed ban on advertising. That meant commercials for beer and wine flooded American culture in a way that whiskey, vodka and the like did not.

Arthur Shapiro, a former marketing chief of Seagram who blogs at Booze Business, says that distinction was dangerous and caused Americans to perceive the consumption of a few bottles of beer as harmless compared to a few shots of bourbon. He writes "In my view, any restrictions - voluntary or imposed - on liquor remain hypercritical, in as much as wine and beer (mainly) do not face comparable constraints in the US."

Should full liquor licenses be more accessible for restaurant and bar proprietors in California? How have craft and artisanal cocktails changed your perception of booze?

Guests:

Arthur Shapiro, blogs at boozebusiness.com; former head of marketing for the U.S. at Seagram Spirits and Wine - now defunct, Seagram was once the largest alcohol distiller in the world.

Allison Evanow, Owner of Square One Organic Spirits