[Avodah] Selling whiskey/bourbon

[Zev Sero]

Simon Montagu wrote:
> (I'm thinking of things like
> Bailey's Irish Cream, if there are any kosher versions of that)

According to the LBD, Baileys is kosher (chalav hacompanies).


Micha Berger wrote:

> Personally, I don't get the whole minhag of not selling chameitz gamur,
> but shopping after Pesach at a store that did. What, it's less ha'aramah
> to rely on his sale than on my own? Or do most of us not have stocked
> pantries for which switching to and from Pesach isn't a hefsed meruba?

It's simple: chametz she'avar alav hapesach is a knass.  You have the
right to be machmir on yourself and not rely on the sale; but why should
the shopkeeper be punished for not being machmir?  He had the right to
rely on it, so you have no reason or right to punish him.

BTW I assume that the minhag of not selling chametz gamur comes from a
time and place when the sale wasn't 100% valid lechol hade'os, and care
wasn't taken to make it completely binding.  In such a situation one might
choose to rely on it only for things whose issur of keeping is only
midrabanan.  And in the presence of such a minhag, the rov may feel
no need to strengthen the sale, because nobody's relying on it for chametz
gamur anyway.  So it may feed back on itself. But with industrial-strength
sales such as are customary today I don't see the point in not relying on
them for everything.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher