Back when I reported to the UK my boss came over for some meetings, and the first night in town he came by my house for dinner. He brought me a bottle of Scotch he’d picked up at Duty Free.
Later in the trip, for whatever reason, he wanted to stop in the liquor store (NH has state-run stores) and he was crestfallen to find that the bottle he’s bought me (a 1L airport size) was more expensive on at per mL basis than the same Scotch at the NH liquor store.
Just sayin’
One of my trips to Germany I wanted to bring home a domestic bottle of Jägermeister. Stopped in the duty free store on my way home which I thought would be easiest. All the printing on the bottle was in English, not German & at that point it was too late to get some anywhere else. IOW, I lugged the bottle for what was the exact same thing I could have bought locally.
Duty free might’ve been a thing on the way into the USA back in the 1960s. By the 80s when I was passing through duty free regularly, any US liquor store had a greater variety at a better price. The only thing duty free can occasionally do for you, is offer a brand you can’t get in the USA.
Nowadays duty free can be of value for somebody entering some other country from the USA. A country that has restrictive liquor licensing, high taxes, antiquated distribution channels, etc.
Buying stuff in Heathrow now avoids the VAT - 20%
It’s always been about saving on tax
The .
Wishing you all a happy Burns Night for the 25th.
I seem to recall that Johnnie Walker had the occasional duty-free only product, like the Explorer’s Collection. (I think the Double Black started out that way, too). I also seem to recall there was a period of time where that was the only place I could find Green Label (my favorite bang-for-buck Johnnie Walker product), but that would go in and out of availability at liquor stores here. I don’t normally drink Johnnie Walker products, but I did enjoy that one. I have no idea what their availability is these days, as it’s been years since I’ve been in the market.
You must mean the only stuff in the USA you could bring duty-free to other countries? Jack Daniel’s would still be popular. I really can’t think of anything else, maybe Wild Turkey 101 is worthy.
From the UK, it’s gotta be whisky, I’ve had Macallan yet only in the USA. Guess I’m a Glenfiddich fan, as for £150 you can get stuff that to me rivals those little 10ml sample paper cups they’ll serve in Edinburgh. I’ll admit a lot of that has to do with not being eager to drop £300 on Islay and sky is the limit.
I think you’ve already purchased whatever whisky you were to bring to your friend but I would like to draw attention to the Springbank ten-year-old malt featured in an article (gift link) in the New York Times the other day. If you’re still looking for something to bring to someone in the New York area, this might be a good choice, given that they might have read the same article in the New York Times.
Yes, back in the USA and haven’t yet touched the £102 Vat 04.
Friend is still likely on painkillers (£150 bottle of gran reserva).
From the article (thanks for the gift)
I’d paid around $60 for my bottle in 2016. Finally, last fall, I found a bottle of the 10-Year for $140.
That’s a little steep for me. Still, I leaped to buy it
There’s a snobby ethic built into all good liquors and wines: name, barrel type, age. The Lidl down the block from me, for some reason, sells no known name brands: 3-year-old Manbabber’s (made up) as their top shelf whisky.
Though last year they sold a nice floral rum, Lady Anno’s I believe, all the way from Kent, for like £12 ($15?) a bottle that was really nice. Never saw it again and paid twice the price to get it from Amazon for her birthday. None this year, alas, and while my wife can tolerate good whisky and even appreciate Jameson’s, we usually do interesting rum & cokes, particularly those with vanilla and other spices.
Lot of the hard core discount retailers in any country sell only stuff from labels you’ve never heard of. Labels specific to their store brand. There’s a large industry making no-name stuff that gets labeled Brand A for store X and Brand B for store Y. Canned goods, packaged food, booze, paper products, ciggies; you name it and somebody is no-naming it.
That has been said about “Waitrose’s Finest” and “Asda’s Finest” bottom shelf products. A decent strawberry jam with Waitrose’s name on it might sell for £0.69, while a better name-brand might be £2.80. Side by side, you’d not get the quality confused, yet you saved £2.00.
No inexpensive liquors at Waitrose yet, Asda sells their own brand white rum for about half the price of Bacardi. I’ve not tried it. Rum isn’t (too) much harder to make than gin or vodka, so it could come from anywhere. I’ll try to check its source next time I’m at Asda. As for spiced, they used to have six or so; now it’s just Kraken and Dead Man’s Fingers. Tesco has more, yet also reduced shelf space.
Now, if it’s called Scotch Whisky, it must be sourced (how entirely, I am unsure) from Scotland. So on the top shelf at Lidl, you might see “MacGlendaddy” [made-up name ] 3-year-old single malt for £17.99 ($25). If it’s from Glenfiddich and their taster says about a 3-year-old barrel. “This won’t get any better”, and it’s off to the MacGlendaddy bottler. Or maybe there is a MacGlendaddy distillery that aims to produce the finest 3-year-old-single-malt and succeeds. Lower your goals until they are met.
Lidl also sells a knock-off of Malibu for a third of the price: Coconut Cove. It has Rum in it, yet I’ve heard it tastes like old sunscreen.
Rachmaninoff Vodka for £4? Or Smirnoff for $16 (at Tesco)? It’s your party, yet if you have guests, hilarity will ensue if they see the bottle you’re pouring (wine can be decanted, and Lidl runs more of a gamut there from £4 to £20)
Yup. All the same in the USA other than different names.
I think that Finest moniker is only Waitrose’s. And of course in neither case are they the bottom shelf stuff. Respectfully, it’s “Essential Waitrose” and “Just Essentials”.
I stopped by Waitrose for some Laundry detergent and milk, and swung by the liquor to “Oooh” at the empty boxes of Glenfiddich 12-16 year old in the middle. To the right Macallan boxes. To the left, I was surprised for £20 - £24 ($28 - £33) Waitrose has three of their own brand of Scotch in association with John McCleod. Not the guy who invented insulin, nor the writer or the composer; the Scotch McLeod. I forget the differences, yet usually age and single-malt. A sensible Scotch, yet for that money I’ll be looking at Jameson’s.
And next to the regular white 70 cl bottle of Bacardi they had a “new!” Bacardi, yet just the 1 liter. I should have checked the price as sometimes the liters go for almost the same as .7 liters till they find a price.
My wife likes Southern Comfort, and for a while Asda was selling something called “Northern Comfort”. After seeing same ingredients and origins, I asked a guy working there, “What’s the difference?” and he said same stuff. After a while of few buying it, it went into sell-through and you could get it for £4 less that Southern Comfort. Yep, same stuff.
One American example of this sort of thing (German-owned retailer selling inexpensive wine and/or liquor) is “Two-Buck Chuck” which was a nickname for a brand of inexpensive wines sold at Trader Joe’s stores (which are sort of a sister store to Aldi) in the early 2000s. Some varieties received awards in competition and the wines were highly regarded and sold like hotcakes.
I was in a Job Lot store; they had (non-alcoholic) Kentucky bourbon for $5.99. What the heck; it’s only $5.99. I bought a bottle & took it to our friends. Four shots were poured, not one was able to be finished. The most vile, disgusting, swill I’ve ever had the misfortune to taste.
I drove out of my way to return it; spending more in gas & time that the $5.99 I got back; but more as a service to my fellow man to make sure they knew that that shit should be pulled from the shelves & not even used to remove (kid’s finger) paint! *::shudder::
I’ve been in Lidl’s in at least two states, never seen alcohol there; didn’t even know they sold it in some states until this thread.
Wine is probably the drink where presentation, and if (mis-) divulged, the year, whether it’s vintage, the vineyard and how many men died on the expedition to make the case of wine this bottle was carefully chosen from and the magnificence of the cellar it was stored in; can make a two-buck-chuck a worthy delight.
Even just looking at the row of 12-16 year old Glenfiddich’s, I wonder what the difference in tastes is in whether how some can and many cannot discern the difference served straight, or as some do with a wee drop of water. I assume Glenfiddich set out to make the 16 year old and didn’t just leave some casks of 12 year old around for four years.
Rum, Whiskey and Vodka you can definitely tell poor & cheap from good.
@Coriolanus is in England. I suspect Lidl’s there have different licensing setups than US ones.
Short version of the story, for those who didn’t realize this.
There are two separate (but closely allied) German companies which operate as Aldi: Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd* (“North” and “South”), originally founded by two brothers. In any given country other than Germany, only one or the other operates Aldi grocery stores.
In the U.S., Aldi grocery stores are operated by Aldi Süd. Trader Joe’s (which is only in the U.S.) has been under the same ownership as Aldi Nord since 1979.
In the United States, there are companies like MGP Ingredients that will sell you whiskey, vodka or other spirits. You can just bottle it, slap your own label on the bottle and pretend it’s something special you made in your distillery, although some of the customers do additional work to the spirits before selling them.