A Taste of the Region

Recent liquor licencing changes in Victoria have crippled a number of businesses eg. music venues and our own specialisation of retailing regional food & wine online. Our liquor licence fee jumped up by over 400% to a level that simply makes the economics of our small online business less worthwhile compared to other commercial activities eg. the Winchelsea Larder cafe/shop.

Our plan is to change over to a single "General" liquor licence at The Larder so that we can retail local food & wine online, in the shop, and with food. The trouble is, a General licence is a fight because the automatic assumption is that there will be a bar and drunks. We intend to 'lock down' licence conditions by hours, products, and other conditions of the licence, but even so there are a number of steps to get through to see if we can be granted a licence. We need a Surveyor to say how many seats there are in the cafe, for example! So easy for large companies, so hard for small business...

So for the time being, A Taste of the Region is not able to sell alcohol per se online, and all alcoholic items have been removed. Liquor licencing laws do permit the sale of alcohol where it is not the focus of an item, eg. a bottle of wine in a hamper or a bottle of beer in a hamper, each with a number of other items. Accordingly, our hampers will still offer the odd excellent bottle from the Geelong Wine Region or a boutique ale from a microbrewery.