Due to a new law, Colorado municpalities now may allow liquor stores to conduct taste-testings.

The change in the state’s liquor laws — opposed by Gov. Bill Owens — allows local municipalities to decide whether to permit in-store tastings. With a municipality’s blessing, Colorado consumers now have the green light to sample up to 2 ounces of spirits and up to 4 ounces of wine or beer in a retail outlet. According to the trade group Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, about a dozen communities in Colorado have enacted, are in the process of enacting or are weighing “tastings ordinances.”Tastings are a consumer-friendly way to introduce new spirits products as well as existing brands that may be new to adult spirits connoisseurs,” Berman Obaldia, vice president of DISCUS, said in a statement distributed at Thursday’s event.

My neighborhood liquor store, the Argonaut, has already had its first testings: of wine, fine rum and bourbon.

I remember when Perkins Shearer, one of Denver’s first designer clothing stores, used to serve wine to customers. They ended up in some kind of lawsuit about it in Denver District Court and the store called me as a witness to say I enjoyed having a glass of wine while I shopped. It was so long ago, that if I’m not mistaken, the judge was Zita Weinshienk, who has not been a state court judge since 1979 (she’s been a federal judge since then and on senior status since 1998.) The store lost. But, now that I’m thinking about it, who wouldn’t like a little spirit boost when you’re about to drop a few grand? It was the decadent Denver 70’s, for sure. Right before the 80’s oil and gas bust. So now, you can have a sip of a new spirit right at your local liquor store. It’s just proof that all good things come back again.