Destination-weird liquor stores

We take a lot of road trips throughout the midwest. I am always on the look out for off the beaten path liquor stores in search of different bourbons and deals. I figure that different states, counties etc have various distributors and sellers and the far out places may have some no longer available bottles due to lack of interest- or because of the 'high' price it never sold or the hype never reached the place. Deals can be had too as the taxes are not as high here in Chicagoland. Anybody else do this?

Jason Wilson, in his excellent "Boozehound" book, calls this Liquor Store Archaeology. But really, 99% of these stores will all have the same stuff, plus higher prices and an inferior selection (compared to, say, Binny's). Beyond that, lurking around various bourbon forums I've learned that the hardcore bottle hunters are quick to jump on any trove, whether it be some dusty roadside shop or a store selling off its entire stock or whatever. Sometimes I think you're better off hitting estate sales.

My best luck has been in mid-sized or smaller cities, big enough to have some distribution and decent size stores, small enough not to have a large group of booze nerds. This works especially well in Sunbelt and Rustbelt cities where things like Bud Lite or Labatt's Blue are still what beer people always drink.

Never thought about estate sales! Reminds me of cleaning out my grandparents' house in the early 70s-we found boxes full of Christmas gift bottles of Old Forrester in the attic. No one drank the stuff and I wonder what the story was as to who gifted these bottles and why.

I am an estate sale junky and subscribe to a weekly posting. I have never seen booze listed but have come across it. I would think it would take a special license plus a huge risk. We cleaned out my inlaws basement bar/rec room a few years ago and they had a pretty large stash still down there after 10 years. Many things had solidified! Bailey's, stuff like that. We opened one bottle of bourbon (Peoria made) and it tasted bitterish flat, everything else had been opened and undrinkable because it sat down there untouched for 10 years. It's a hit and miss risk and I'd be careful with anything opened because you can't be sure what's really in it! We came across some home brew by my FIL bottled in name brand bottles that was pure poison awful!!

The wierdest liquor store I have ever been in was in Fall River, MA. We went into what looked like a corner convenience store looking for beer, but discovered a large selection of Portuguese wines and spirits, in addition to expected brands. What made it wierd were the many Portuguese off-brands labelled with quotation marks, e.g. "Rum." We bought "Anisette" and "Rum" and they lived up to their names. Oddly like rum and anisette, but. . . one wonders what the heck they were. Grain alcohol with flavoring? Yikes!

Also, (years ago) my uncle Jack used to swear by the wine prices in Utah. He claimed that because the state runs the stores they have a policy that the original price of the wine remains on the bottle until it is purchased. A standard order for the stores included some vintages that would rapidly grow in value. In areas where there were few drinkers, and thus, few customers for these high-priced vintages, he could pick up a Chateau Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi for next to nothing.

I'm a Chicago transplant to the Appleton Wisconsin area and the most interesting liquor store up here is Club Liquors in Menasha. Yesterday I bought the 2012 20 year old Pappy for $107. Granted they only had three bottles and they were sold out 15 minutes after opening but you have to respect the "first come first serve" notice put out that morning via email. The owners are curmudgeonly but warm up if you make the first effort and aren't easily offended by your first impression. I hear there is some interesting selections in the basement - I've been afraid (financially) to ask.

Great (for the area) Scotch and Tequila selection as well as some interesting foreign offerings (at one point they had two or three choices of cachaca!).

Perhaps the best thing about Club is that the prices aren't inflated for the trendier bottles.