Post #755850 by mikehooker on Thu, Dec 10, 2015 12:32 PM

I was really excited a few months ago when Total Wine opened their first store in Austin. I had been to locations in Jacksonville and Dallas that both impressed me. We have two major liquor store chains here, Twin and Spec's. Most Twin stores are small neighborhood shops with little more to offer than Bacardi, Malibu and Capt Morgan but they have a couple larger stores with some surprises (I recently said the secret word to procure a bottle of Stiggins they had hidden in the back). They are typically significantly more expensive than Spec's though, who used to be my one stop shop but over the past several months essentials like BG syrups, Coruba, Clement and other items in regular rotation in my bar started disappearing off their shelves. So I was hoping Total Wine would fill the gaps so I wouldn't have to keep shopping multiple stores. Gotta say I was really disappointed with the rum selection and mixers at the new Total Wine and their prices were spot on to Spec's so I really don't have a need to go there since it's way south and Spec's are pretty much everywhere. In a city like Austin it's amazing to me we don't have better liquor store options or atleast a flagship store from one of the chains.