Whether or not
I think you look 40 depends on how good I am at determining age. That's very subjective and lots of people aren't very good at it. And I'm not very good at it personally. I'm reasonably good at determining if someone is over 50/55 and if you're in your teens (maybe) but anything in between - nope. Not good at that.
It is not the law anywhere to ID, just to not sell to minors. If someone is clearly in their senior years, there is no law that says that you can't sell them alcohol without seeing their ID. It might be policy, but that is not the same thing as a law. I wish that we could all come back to center, where common sense lives.
Florida statutes state that:
(d) Any person charged with a violation of paragraph (a) has a complete defense if, at the time the alcoholic beverage was sold, given, served, or permitted to be served:
1. The buyer or recipient falsely evidenced that he or she was 21 years of age or older;
2. The appearance of the buyer or recipient was such that a prudent person would believe the buyer or recipient to be 21 years of age or older;
and
3. Such person carefully checked a driver license or an identification card issued by this state or another state of the United States, a passport, or a United States Uniformed Services identification card presented by the buyer or recipient and acted in good faith and in reliance upon the representation and appearance of the buyer or recipient in the belief that the buyer or recipient was 21 years of age or older.
So while it's not the law to
require checking ID, if you can show that you specifically checked someone's ID or that you check ID regularly and for everyone, it will serve as a defence should you be accused of, or actually sell to, someone under 21 (that's the subject of paragraph (a)).
Many places selling alcohol
will do all three (which you are required to do by law if you want to CYA) to make sure and to prevent servers, especially young and inexperienced ones, from having to make a judgment call on something they may not be good at. Stating that you were sure the person was 40 without checking ID will not protect you from potentially being charged or losing your license.
I don't really want to carry my passport around on the off chance that I want a beer. If they accepted UK driving licenses then fine but they don't.
I too find it annoying that we have to show a passport (Canadian) rather than a driver's license, but I read somewhere that it's ostensibly because no one in Florida knows what a Canadian driver's license
should look like so it could be fake but would recognize a passport. I think it's a bit of a spurious argument and kind of stupid, but my feeling that way doesn't change things. However, as I've seen in addition to others, a photo of it seems to be sufficient.