Just be happy you don't live in Pennsylvania; here, all hard liquor and wine is sold in State Stores and priced accordingly (I just paid $25 for a fifth -- 750 ml -- of Maker's Mark). You can buy two (and only two) six packs at a bar to take home, but need to buy a case (and only a case) at a beer distributor, regulated by the state. A free drink at a bar from a sympathetic barkeep is as rare as a hen's tooth, and I suspect quasi-illegal.
There is a constant political undertow to liberalize the system; our Republican governor-elect made it a campaign plank this year. But I also suspect that those who hold beer licenses will persuade our legislature otherwise. On the bright side the legislature was corruptable enough to exempt taverns from the anti-smoking ordinance that was passed here a couple of years back, so you can still smoke and have a drink and in a sympathetic establishment, enjoy a cigar or pipe like an adult, which is a fine thing and worth the surcharge, IMHO.