There a not-so-delicious irony in Kentucky, the home of America's greatest spirit (bourbon of course), being the most dry state in the nation. Most of the major distillers are even in dry counties, which is especially cruel.
The yellow is a little misleading, because esp. in the northeast and midwest you'll have counties that are mostly wet but one tiny dry town can flip it to yellow, which is really not the same thing as a "dry county" especially wrt your concerns (having to drive longer distances for booze leading to greater danger on the roads).
In general I'm okay with individual towns and Indian reservations going "dry" if they want but can't really support it at the county level, for the same reasons you give.
Yeah, I was confused by that when I first saw this map, too. For example, in Cook County, which is shown as a mixed county, nearly every locality is "wet", with the only dry community being South Holland, a suburb that was originally founded by Dutch Reformed immigrants. It makes up just under half a percent of Cook County's population.
That's because alcohol sales in those states are predominantly under state control. In Idaho, sales of packaged alcohol is under control of the state government, and pretty much all alcohol-related laws are made by the state in Utah. Neither of them have actually decided to outright
prohibit sales (although they have put restrictions in place on things like how you can sell it and how you can advertise it).
Also, that one mixed county in Nevada only has one dry community, the CDP of Panaca, which is only dry because it was originally part of Utah, and was grandfathered into state law (besides this exception, the state requires each county to issue alcohol licenses).
