Buying expensive, limited spirts and wine

If I'm going to buy something like that, which is rare, I'm going to buy from a (close) friend who as a collection and I trust, including his cellaring/storage. No extra fees and a lot of peace of mind.

 

When buying high quality but limited quantity... I use Piersons in Atlanta.

You can pretty much find Dom Perignon anywhere... buying a vintage like 90 or 95 takes some doing. Petrus is more difficult.

 

I have the sad misfortune of living in a State with some idiotic liquor laws, which limits my options to what is "locally available". It is against the law to "ship" alcoholic beverages of any kind into or out of the State of Oklahoma unless you have a liquor distributors license...

That means I have to network with friends who know which liquor stores carry what wines, spirits, and beers. I have 3 in Oklahoma City I can safely go to for specific items I like, but nary a good one in the County I live in for the really "good stuff", and our prices are higher by 10-20% than the ones in the "big city".

For those of you who don't know what I mean about idiotic liquor laws, here is what I'm talking about...

Oklahoma forbids Liquor stores from refrigerating beer, wine, or anything else for that matter. They cannot sell anything that is not alcoholic, which means you can buy warm beer, but you can't buy ice there. You can buy as much wine as you want, but it is illegal for them to sell a corkscrew of any kind. Liquor stores are open from 10am to 9pm Monday through Saturday, period. Liquor stores are only allowed to sell items with more than 3.2% abv. Grocery stores, mini marts, etc... are only allowed to sell items with LESS than 3.2% abv, but unlike liquor stores they can sell 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, hot or cold. It just became legal in 2009 to sell liquor on Election Day. It has only been legal to sell "liquor by the drink" (mixed drinks, wine, whiskey, etc...) at a bar or restaurant for about 20 years. When I first moved here all bars were "beer only", and if you wanted something else you had to BYOB to the bar, and the bartender could "sell" the mixer, ice, rent the glass, etc... and the labor to do the mixing for you. You could BYOB to the bar, put your name on the label, and leave it there if you wanted to if you were a "regular".

We are slowly migrating out of Prohibition...but not by much

 

bringing your own liquor to a bar sounds great.

 

I'll take 2.

http://www.hdhwine.com/retail-wine-detail/oto-lot/2417?utm_source=Vinquire&utm_medium=WineFeed&utm_content=2004+Screaming+Eagle+Cabernet+Sauvignon+15+L+Magnum&utm_campaign=base&v_traceback=c0712_2041_f0713_0209