Buying booze online: legal in Texas?

Factual Questions
1

So I decided to get some fancy-shmancy liquor for a friend as a Christmas present. To my surprise, I found several professional-looking (yes, like that means anything) online liquor stores. A few even offer nice holiday gift baskets with those little cheeses and crackers and other Christmasy items, which is a lot more charming than just handing your pal a brown paper bag of booze. Problem is, someone at work told me today that it is illegal to ship liquor across state lines into Texas. So I did some googling and my results were confounding: some claim it is indeed illegal. Others say it used to be, but not anymore. Still others say it’s illegal unless you’re buying wine, which is exempt, for some reason. So far I have not found a totally convincing source either way.

But surely, you say, these online liquor stores would be able to tell you if they can ship to your state, right? Well, yeah, except even they differ. Some don’t ship to Texas, and some do (although I don’t know if that’s because it’s legal or because they’re shady).

So, anybody know for sure? I certainly don’t want to break the law, but neither do I want to get off my lazy ass and find a real liquor store if I don’t have to. (Hell, I rarely drink, so I don’t even know if there’s one near me.)

2

You might call the Department of Public Safety or the police and see if they happen to know.

3

It recently (within the last few years) became legal in Texas to order alcohol and have it shipped to you.

We had wine shipped to us for a time. It required an adult signature at delivery.

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/archives/Arch05/p032905a.htm

It appears it may be limited to wine, and the distributors must obtain proper permits.

4

I can’t say for sure about spirits, wine is allowed.

You might want to check out this website for more info. There are a few linked articles and some phone numbers. You might get a straight answer from someone.

I also couldn’t speak to the shadiness of any online liquor stores, but my gut tells me they are legit and just have whatever paperwork needed to allow them to ship, while another may not. Could be wrong, but the penalties involved for them just don’t seem to be worth the risk of shipping a few, or many for that matter, bottles of bourbon or whatever.