Buying Liquor Online (The Headache's Thrown In For Free)
Where do you go when your local liquor store won't do? Photograph from shortfatkid on Flickr
In January, I vented about the difficulty of finding and purchasing various types of spirits, thanks in no small part to the bewildering system of state liquor laws that govern the trade in alcoholic beverages. Now, just as you’re trying to find that great bourbon you’ve been searching for in time for Father’s Day, Eric Felten at the Wall Street Journal is letting loose, too.
After running a recipe that called for the somewhat hard-to-find maraschino liqueur, Felten writes of the experiences his readers encountered, epitomized by the liquor store owner who insisted that the complex Italian or Croatian liqueur was the same thing as the sweet, neon-red syrup that cocktail cherries are packed in. A simple mistake for a rookie, but for someone in the industry, a dumb—and all too familiar—move.
The good news is you can find that bottle of single-barrel bourbon, Dutch gin, or small-batch bitters online more often than not. Bad news, though: it’s a royal pain to find it and buy it, and oftentimes it's illegal. Some states prohibit all shipments of liquor, while the others cherry-pick which states it’s acceptable to order from or ship to. In my home state of Washington, the selection is diverse but limited. I was recently cut off by an Internet retailer in Chicago who apparently received a sharp letter from the state attorney’s office sometime after my last order; fortunately, retailers in New York and New Jersey still satisfy my needs for spirits I can’t find near home, albeit the deal comes with expensive shipping and occasionally a hefty markup.
Sticker shock was a sticking point for Felten, too, who noted that SendLiquor.com tacks cardiac-inducing premiums to the spirits it carries. From my own experience, DrinkUpNY.com throws in free shipping on orders over $100, but its limited selection is a drawback.
So, for those who’ve had good luck with online spirits retailers, put a note in the comments section and help a fella (and his thirsty friends) out: what online store have you found reliable, and how’s their selection and pricing?
About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.
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3 Comments:
internetwines.com has pretty much always been able to provide hard-to-find items for about what I would expect to pay in a brick-and-mortar store. Shipping costs, though, do make physical stores preferable.
thattallguy at 6:01PM on 06/11/08
Wally's Wines out of LA has always been my go-to for hard to find spirits. I, too, am living in WA. While we've shed the most draconian of the blue laws [am showing my age, but I remember when they made it legal for bars to have windows in the 70s], the Liquor Control Board still thinks that Galliano is the height of fancy. I've ordered several times from Wally's and have never had a problem - and because of our craaaazy liquor taxes, the shipping from CA is almost the same of what the cost in-store/in-state would be [deduced by pricing out a common bottle of scotch].
And did I mention, they have the Maraschino liqueuer [yum!] and the St. Germain Elderflower [yummier!].
http://www.wallywine.com/
sallyforth at 9:55PM on 06/11/08
I live in New Jersey and buy all my hard to find Scotch at LoveScotch, www.lovescotch.com. They have an unbelievable selection and the shipping fees are reasonable. I've also had good luck buying from www.LiquorStore-Online.com
ScotchGuy at 10:30PM on 07/10/08