These Are the Best (and Easiest) Ways to Buy Booze Online

On the tangle of interwebs, all it takes is a credit card to order a kit to clone your beloved pet pup, Barbara Streisand-style. With a few clicks, you can attempt to fix the mess that is your mental health. A quick trigger finger will get you the most hyped sneakers dropping this week. But you cannot with ease buy alcohol online straight from a distillery, winery, or brewery. Most often, the best you can hope for when you want to sample a new bottle from a craft whiskey distiller or beer outfit is a locator map on the website telling you which stores in the area stock the product. And then you have to drive to those stores. Ugh, driving.

We want the alcohol right here, right now, with as minimal effort as possible. And because our consumerist world quickly adapted to our medically-necessary hermitic ways at the beginning of 2020, there are plenty of websites that will deliver all kinds of alcohol to your door. But first, the boring stuff.

Per state law, folks living in Alabama are not permitted to get shipments of alcohol at all. Sorry. But most other states allow alcohol delivery from licensed retailers, although the regulations can differ for wine, beer, and spirits. Quite a few states will only permit wine shipments. Again, sorry. Instead of digging through your state's confusing laws, just check a company's website to see where it will ship. Some of these online alcohol businesses are new, so they're just now building up a delivery web outside major cities, but others have established shipment across much of the country.

And of course, all online alcohol companies make you prove you're at least 21 years old when you order and receive the booze, most by requiring the signature of an adult upon delivery and/or the scanning of a valid ID. None will leave packages at your front door while you're at work. If you think this is complicated, just wait until you start trying to buy legal weed online.

These are some of the best options for buying alcohol easily online, whether you're disinclined to leave your home or your local liquor store doesn't have the bottle you're looking for. Keep in mind that independent bars and restaurants are trying to keep above water, so a cocktail-to-go order will never go amiss.


How to get immediate alcohol delivery

If you have no patience, or you're in the middle of hosting a party and the well ran dry (a real situation that could once again happen in 2021—imagine!), a few companies offer immediate delivery depending on where you live, just as if you were ordering takeout.


How to get the best liquor selection

You go to the liquor store around the corner when you need another bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. You lose hours of your life spelunking the virtual shelves on these websites when you want something intriguing and new (or rather, very old) to sip. What they stock is high-quality, rare, and limited. And they've got Johnnie Walker, too.


How to get the best wine selection

There's an advantage to buying wine online rather than at the grocery store: more information. That only matters for folks who don't judge a wine by its label.


How to get the best beer selection

Craft beer is hyper-local, but some online services are up to the task of curating a good selection and shipping it where it's allowed. You'll find heavy-hitters like Bell's and New Belgium, and you'll discover independent breweries you've never heard of.


How to set up monthly alcohol shipments

Join a subscription club. Seriously. There are a boatload to choose from, all of them offering some variation of the same thing: monthly deliveries of new and interesting alcohols, each tailored to your preferences. Flaviar and Caskers are ideal for fine spirits. Taster's Club is great for someone who wants to explore a single spirit category, like gin or tequila. For wine, Winc skews towards younger and more inexperienced drinkers, First Leaf caters to your palate, and Vinebox is all about single-serve vials. Craft Beer Club and Beer Drop handle exactly that—craft beer from independent breweries. Beyond this handful, find more here.

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