LiveWire

When it comes to making a good impression on foreigners, candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. That’s pretty much the State Department’s justification for running up the tab on booze just before the government shutdown this fall.

Running up the tab: State Dept. bought $180,000 in liquor before shutdown

“The United States wishes to make the best impression in its dealings with foreign governments and other groups and carries out lawfully its representational activities, including its diplomatic receptions, in as effective and as culturally appropriate a manner as possible,” the statement read.

While the rest of the government prepared to shut down this fall, the State Department was busy stocking up on embassy liquor supplies.

In September, the final month of the fiscal year, the State Department spent about $180,000 — and racked up a total of more than $400,000 for the whole year, three times the entire liquor tab for all of 2008.

The liquor bill, split among purchase orders placed at embassies around the world, included some major last-minute pre-shutdown splurges:

• $5,625 in “gratuity wine” at the embassy in Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 29, followed by $5,925 in “gratuity whiskey” on the day the shutdown began.

• $22,416 in wine at the embassy in Tokyo.

• $15,900 in bourbon and whiskey in Moscow.

the State Department bought $415,000 worth of alcohol in fiscal 2012, which was 25 percent more than the $331,000 spent in 2011 and more than triple the $118,000 spent in 2008.

So maybe when the Iran deal blows up (literally), Kerry can borrow an excuse from another politician: “[I was] probably in one of my drunken stupors”.

FY 2012 was from October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012. In other words, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s last tab.