Since 1987, Stephen McCarthy of Clear Creek Distillery has been making eau de vie and offering free tastes of his brandy at his Northwest Portland distillery without incident.

Last month everything changed, and not necessarily for the better.

The changes that have soured McCarthy date back to 2007, when the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 451. The goal of the bill, co-sponsored by then-state Sen. Ben Westlund (D-Tumalo) and then-Rep. Chuck Burley (R-Bend), was seemingly positive.

Their measure aimed to give broader powers to distillers in the burgeoning Oregon industry that McCarthy pioneered.

Specifically, the bill removed limitations on selling spirits in Oregon to encourage more McMenamins-style pubs. Thus was born what the Bend Bulletin called the “still pub.”

If the change seems narrow, it was. But it was exactly what Central Oregon’s Bendistillery had sought.

Then the Oregon Liquor Control Commission entered the picture. For two years, the OLCC studied the bill, approving new rules to regulate the still pubs in August. Those rules went into effect Nov. 1.

Here’s the problem for some distillers: As part of the same set of new rules, the OLCC decided it would have to limit the amount of alcohol that visitors to distilleries could consume in tasting rooms. This limit doesn’t exist at wineries or brew pubs in the state.

The practical effect?

Operations like McCarthy’s Clear Creek Distillery that offer free tastings to visitors now must restrict patrons to five drinks of no more than a half-ounce, or 10 tastes of a quarter-ounce, for a total of 2½ ounces.

“There was nothing to suggest we needed a limit,” McCarthy says, noting that his employees were never in the business of getting visitors drunk off grappa.

But the OLCC says the rules are consistent and can be applied evenly to all 25 distilleries in the state. An exception exists for “trade” visitors to tasting rooms; buyers and out-of-town journalists, for instance, may have unlimited tastes.

McCarthy is ruefully sanguine.

“Once this rule is adopted you have to be able to police it,” he says. “You have to do what the rules say. We have accepted this limit on our freedom.”

David Nowlin of Brandy Peak Distillery in Brookings says it could have been worse. The OLCC at first wanted a lower limit.

“When they first proposed it, it was awful,” Nowlin says. “But we made a big enough stink about it that they made it doable.”