I’m too lazy to trek all the way to Modern Liquors over on 9th Street. I could buy wine at the Giant but I really don’t like my birthdate displayed on the register for everyone to see. So when I needed to stock up on wine and other spirits I wandered to something a bit closer, Bloomingdale Liquors on Rhode Island.
Yes, I know there are two other liquor stores closer to my house but I’m not going to them. For one, I hate going into places like that. Everything, and I mean everything is behind the bullet proof glass in the closer liquor stores. The shopping experience is demeaning. Maybe it is okay for your classic ghetto wino picking up his Peaches & Cream flavor of MD 20/20, but not me. I hate the bullet proof glass, more so when it looks like it hasn’t been cleaned. Second, neither of the two closest liquor stores carry wine I can cook with. Arbor Mist and Boon’s Farm are really not worth making a garlic wine sauce with and I don’t consider them to be real wines.
I’m not a wine snob. My stock wine is Trader Joe’s $2 Buck (really more $3) Chuck. A Kendell-Jackson would be fine. Sutter Home would be good too. I’m not asking for $20-$50 bottles, which I’d never buy because I’m also cheap, but I want wine that isn’t wino wine.
So I went to Bloomingdale Liquors at 1st and Rhode Island. Yes, there is the bullet proof glass but there are also aisles of product I can closely look at and compare. And I did compare a bottle of Captain Morgan rum with Barcardi. I also picked up a shiraz. I could have picked up a merlot, some white or red table wine, or sherry. Most important to me as a shopper, I got to pick them, look at the bottles and decided whether or not I should buy. Not looking through some obscured glass trying to determine if that bottle on the far shelf is something I want.