

Black market just makes it even harder to figure out where your money’s going.
Are the people smuggling liquor across the border only smuggling liquor, or are they involved in other crimes that you’re supporting from buying from them?
When is the liquor being diverted from legitimate channels into the black market? Has it already crossed the border and the tariffs been paid? Kind of defeats the purpose then, doesn’t it? Is it happening before it crosses the border and possibly fucking over the Canadians you’re trying to support?
Unless you’re traveling to Canada and buying it legitimately to smuggle back you’re probably not accomplishing what you hope to.
Or I suppose you could start moonshining.
I believe they’re owned by Diageo, which is a UK company, and I don’t think that Diageo has an American subsidiary like Suntory does, but otherwise pretty much everything I said applies.
This really is a situation where you have to do a little research and make your own value judgement on these things. I’m honestly not too sure where I land on it, I want to support Canada in this but I also want to give as little money to the US government as possible, and they’re somewhat at odds so I need to make the call which is more important for me with every item I might buy that has to cross the border.