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Best sites to buy alcohol on line?

arcadiandj

By arcadiandj
in Spirits & Cocktails

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arcadiandj

arcadiandj

Posted
Posted

Related to my post about LA, Phoenix has total wine, bev mo, and AJs. While they all certainly have plenty, I am not finding some of the more specific types of rum I have been looking for. So I'm curious if there are web sites that are particularly good. Thank you in advance!

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Lisa Shock

Lisa Shock

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1 hour ago, arcadiandj said:

Related to my post about LA, Phoenix has total wine, bev mo, and AJs. While they all certainly have plenty, I am not finding some of the more specific types of rum I have been looking for. So I'm curious if there are web sites that are particularly good. Thank you in advance!

The people at AJs are a great resource. There should be a wine and spirits specialist in the store most of the time. Talk to them. If a distributor carries something, they will gladly order it for you at no additional cost beyond their standard markup. It is sometimes useful to know who the distributor is, so check out the backs of bottles carefully.

Have you read eGullet's Kitchen Scale manifesto?

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tanstaafl2

tanstaafl2

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A little depends on the Byzantine limits some states place on sales of spirits from online locations. Some states permit wine but not liquor to be shipped to you. Some stores won't sell to a state that has limits and some will. Some states won't let stores in their jurisdiction sell online to out of state locations. it is bizarre and remarkably frustrating (and something I will fix immediately if I was ever elected dictator!). Most California stores and Binny's in Chicago won't ship to me which probably isn't a bad thing or I would spend even more on liquor than I do now (and what I spend now is already way too much!). Both DrinkUpNY and Astor (which seems to have more variety than DUNY) will ship to me so I have to rely on what they have and the typically higher, although not always, NY prices.

 

So a long way of saying it depends in part on where you live as to what the best options might be.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. ~Mark Twain

Some people are like a Slinky. They are not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs...

~tanstaafl2

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DianaB

DianaB

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As we live at a distance from any decent shops selling alcohol we do tend to buy most things on line. Amazon, be it the UK site (default for us), French, Italian, Canadian - we can log in to Amy of them using the same account, sells a vast range of liqueurs at prices often lower than might be found locally, that is if you can find the item locally.  We do check prices where products are offered by other vendors, often it is these vendors that use Amazon Market Place as another shop window. We do understand that smaller vendors need sales and will use them when we can.

 

In England most supermarkets will deliver your weekly/monthly groceries but the 'budget' chains don't do this. Recently however the Allbrecht brothers' discount store (aka ALDI - Allbrecht Discount) have started delivering wines and spirits. The service is excellent, superb packaging and free delivery, at least for the moment. I see that Aldi owns Trader Jo in the USA, perhaps they have similar offers?  Aldi Australia was apparently the first with this service.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
brinza

brinza

Posted
Posted
On 3/28/2016 at 4:59 PM, tanstaafl2 said:

A little depends on the Byzantine limits some states place on sales of spirits from online locations. Some states permit wine but not liquor to be shipped to you. Some stores won't sell to a state that has limits and some will. Some states won't let stores in their jurisdiction sell online to out of state locations. it is bizarre and remarkably frustrating (and something I will fix immediately if I was ever elected dictator!). Most California stores and Binny's in Chicago won't ship to me which probably isn't a bad thing or I would spend even more on liquor than I do now (and what I spend now is already way too much!). Both DrinkUpNY and Astor (which seems to have more variety than DUNY) will ship to me so I have to rely on what they have and the typically higher, although not always, NY prices.

 

So a long way of saying it depends in part on where you live as to what the best options might be.

DrinkupNY has an interesting way of getting around certain regulations, like with PA, for example. (Note: I may or may not have ordered from DrinkupNY ¬¬). They put the onus on the buyer by having you agree that they are not shipping to you, but rather YOU are hiring the carrier to pick up a package at their store and take it to you.  So they can legally say, "We didn't ship a damn thing into Pennsylvania, you hired UPS to come get it."  Having said, that I do recommend them.

Mike

"The mixing of whiskey, bitters, and sugar represents a turning point, as decisive for American drinking habits as the discovery of three-point perspective was for Renaissance painting." -- William Grimes

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sbumgarner

sbumgarner

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This has been mentioned awhile back in another thread, but while I generally like DrinkUpNY, they have had some issues with tracking their inventory. If you place an order for seven bottles and one of those is found to be out of stock after you ordered (even though the website doesn't say it's out of stock while you're ordering), instead of immediately contacting you, they'll often sit on the entire order for 2 weeks or more waiting for the one bottle to fulfill the order, leaving you wondering what the hell happened. The really nice thing about them is they ship pretty much anywhere, as mentioned upthread.

 

Now that they ship to NJ, I've started using Astor much more frequently. Even though it's just across the river from me, not having to lug 10 bottles on the PATH has been great, and I always get stuff pretty soon after ordering. According to their site there are still states they can't ship to, but that list has dwindled significantly over the years.

Edited by sbumgarner (log)
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  • 7 months later...
quiet1

quiet1

Posted
Posted
On 4/8/2016 at 0:09 PM, brinza said:

DrinkupNY has an interesting way of getting around certain regulations, like with PA, for example. (Note: I may or may not have ordered from DrinkupNY ¬¬). They put the onus on the buyer by having you agree that they are not shipping to you, but rather YOU are hiring the carrier to pick up a package at their store and take it to you.  So they can legally say, "We didn't ship a damn thing into Pennsylvania, you hired UPS to come get it."  Having said, that I do recommend them.

 

They now say they can't do delivery to PA. :(

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JCK

JCK

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22 hours ago, quiet1 said:

 

They now say they can't do delivery to PA. :(

 It looks like Astor Wines does though. I haven't tried them, but I bet I will soon since a lot of places don't ship to NC...

Edited by JCK
errant comma (log)
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