Montgomery County Alcohol Beverage Services Launches Limited Availability Lotteries Providing Opportunities to Purchase Highly Sought Spirits; Registration Opens Sunday, April 3

For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 31, 2022

Montgomery County’s Alcohol Beverage Services (ABS) will welcome the spring season with a limited availability whiskey lottery that provides opportunities to purchase highly sought spirits. The lottery is free to enter but has varying residency requirements.

ABS has created two resident lotteries this year. The first lottery will be open to Maryland residents 21 and over. The second lottery will be open only to Montgomery County residents 21 and over. Each includes a wide range of spirits bottles, with some overlap. County residents will be able to enter both the State and the County lottery.

A total of 378 bottles will be available to customers for purchase in the lotteries. Among the spirits County residents will have an opportunity to purchase are a 2020 release of a Pappy Van Winkle six-bottle set, a Buffalo Trace Antique Collection five-bottle set and a Michter’s 20-year bourbon. Statewide residents selected in the lottery will have an opportunity to purchase items including bottles from Colonel EH Taylor Jr. Warehouse C.

Registration for the lottery begins at noon on Sunday, April 3. Consumers will have until 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, April 9, to enter the lotteries. After each lottery closes, a random drawing will be conducted and the winning numbers will be posted online at noon on Monday, April 18.

Winners will be able to purchase their bottle from a designated store from Friday, April 22, through Sunday, May 1.

Each resident entering the lottery will be able to select their top preferences from the list of bottles available. Bottle counts are listed on the registration forms. Details on how to enter the lottery, including an entry form, are available on the ABS website at https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/abs/lottery.

A third lottery will be open to Montgomery County alcohol license holders who are authorized to sell spirits on their premises. The licensee lottery will run at the same time as the resident lotteries and will boost availability of allocated items available by the glass in the County. 

“ABS is able to procure items that neighboring jurisdictions cannot get, or get very little of, and we offer them at fair pricing to give people access,” said ABS Retail Chief Kent Massie. “You just do not see this happening elsewhere locally.”

ABS is the alcohol wholesaler of beer, wine and spirits for Montgomery County. ABS operates 25 beer, wine and spirits stores and one spirits-only store in Poolesville. It manages alcohol licensing, enforcement, and education for more than 1,000 businesses. Generating more than $35 million in net income annually, ABS profits are used to pay down County debt with a large portion deposited in the County general fund to pay for resident services that would otherwise be funded by County tax dollars.

Learn more about ABS by visiting the website and by following ABS on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Release ID: 22-199
Media Contact: Jocelyn Rawat 202-604-7289
Categories: ABS