26 June 2010

Does Canberra have any designer alcohol shops?

| klh44
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Tapping into collective knowledge here, there used to be an alcohol shop in the Canberra Center that stocked drinks in really awesome (and some slightly more than PG) bottles and unique flavours.

Can anyone recall what it was called?

And is there a similar shop open elsewhere in Canberra?

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Grace Charlotte9:52 pm 03 Jun 19

Canberra Wine and Spirit Merchants is just opening up in the city. They are supposedly stocking around 50 Canberra District wineries! http://www.canberrawineandspiritmerchants.com.au

+1 for Plonk. It’s like going on a world trip in beer terms. Good friendly service, I am looking forward to going back there.

Get them a bottle of Bundy: the sugar goes straight to their heads, and then it’s all on for young an old.

Muttsybignuts10:24 pm 27 Jun 10

+1 for Plonk.
I recently ate at a Bavarian “haus” at the Gold Coast and had a magnificent, unpronounceable German beer. Top stuff indeed. Upon my return to Canberra i searched for it in all the usual places to no avail. A couple of weeks a go we decided to hit the Fyshwick markets because, well we hadn’t been there in ages and the new TV ads sucked us in. My first stop was Plonk and there was my fabled beer sitting proudly on the shelf among a million other unpronounceable titles. Six pack acquired and happily guzzled. Cant wait to get back for some more.

I recall that Canberra Cellars (or the Bottle-O) in Braddon and Belconnen have a pretty wide range of various alcoholic beverages….

Pommy bastard1:16 pm 27 Jun 10

“Designer alcohol”, oh me oh my, what will these pretentious tits think of to waste their money on, in a vain attempt to look different, trendy, special, and anything but their bland beige selves, next?

PS – before I started working at Plonk (when we were located in Manuka), the shop used to focus on the little bottles of multi-coloured liqueurs KLH44 is referring to – but they were a terrible product in terms of business: there just wasn’t any turnover in it, people would come in only when they had a significant birthday to buy for and no other time.

They were also incredibly inefficient sales as one staff member would end up spending 20mins giving a little tasting of half a dozen different liqueurs before the customer would settle on a $20 purchase and come back 6months later or more.

We had a customer come in two weeks ago who said “what do you mean you don’t the little liqueur bottles anymore? I brought mine back for a refill!” – she was the first customer to bring it up after 2yrs of not doing doing the liqueurs. Awesome…

Plus – if I remember correctly (and I may be wrong) the ACT Gov had something to say about refilling potentially unhygienic bottles that customers brought back to the shop – this may be why Flashengeist shut down?

cheerio,

Dan

(small disclaimer: I work at Plonk; beer is my crazy obsession!)

Thanks Beau Locks for the kind words about Plonk!

Luther_Bendross, at any particular time we have between 500-600 different beers and about 60 different ciders (as far as we can tell we have the largest/most-diverse selection of beer in the ACT and NSW combined). These are both Australian craft beers as well as a large selection of imported beers. Of the foreign stuff we tend to have more beers from Belgium, the UK, Germany and the US as these countries tend to have the greatest diversity of styles.

We also offer a 10% discount of any mixed six or more beers and after 24 beers another 10-15% comes off the price; we apply the same discount to mixed sixpacks and cases that other stores apply only to straight sixpacks and cases.

It’s like a beer-library and they pay me to be a beer-librarian! wot a hoot, I love it!

Plus we have a very large selection of Canberra regional wines (it’s a shame more shops don’t support the Canberra wine region)

cheers,

Dan

ooh yeah, we also do free beer and wine tastings every Saturday from 1-4pm

If you are wanting something bright coloured, lolly flavoured liquor type drink – there is a cognac based drink with at least 3 flavours – 1 is Alize (bright blue) – about $40 a bottle and the gen Ys at work love it.

As for the canberra is famous other than for politicians – my first thought was the bright lights in Fyshwick but you want tasteful! How about the iconic national places – National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, Questacon etc.

There is a specialist bottle shop first on the left when you enter fyshwick markets.

Thanks for the advice all. I’m more after the slightly suss bottle for a 21st gift, so the quality of the drink isn’t going to matter all that much.

Taking this slightly off topic – does anyone have other ideas for gifts that have a slight “canberra is not only famous for politicians” theme? Still mostly tasteful though, if at all possible.

That cheese and wine shop next to uni pub is a goer, been there and bought many a nice beer in my time.
Another suggestion – it you’re on the southside and it’s still there, is the George’s Liqour Stables in Dundas Ct, Phillip. Huge selection of beers, not so sure on the liquor side of things, but the staff are always helpful.

luther_bendross8:38 pm 26 Jun 10

Hey Beau Locks! I’ve never been to Plonk @ Fysho, and I do like beer. What does plonk have that other places won’t/don’t?

Thoroughly Smashed said :

Beau Locks said :

If you want good wine (and money’s not a consideration) go to the Wine and Cheese Providore at Manuka. If you’re after beer, don’t bother with anywhere but Plonk at Fyshwick Markets. An all round okay grog shop is the one opposite the Uni Pub on University Ave in town. They also have cheap goat’s cheese on a pretty regular basis (it must go off faster than other cheese). There are a few places with a good selection of whisky. Again, if you’re not worried about price, the shop on Bouganville St in Manuka’s got a good selection.

Somehow I don’t think good quality wine or beer is quite what KLH44 has in mind. I can’t even work out what “designer alcohol” means.

Hmm. Yeah, I reckon I was off the mark. Prolly not too far off the mark for good grog shops, tho. If WMC @ #6 is right, I don’t reckon I want to have anything to do with ‘designer alcohol’.

Clown Killer7:49 pm 26 Jun 10

Woody, you make it sound so tasty!

Woody Mann-Caruso5:43 pm 26 Jun 10

I thought Flaschengeist and its ilk just sold ethanol and water flavoured with various concentrates. If that’s what floats your boat, dilute cheap vodka to whatever strength you like and top it up with spirit essences from the homebrew shop, adding a little glycerin or corn syrup for mouthfeel. They have every colour and flavour you can think of.

Thoroughly Smashed4:57 pm 26 Jun 10

Beau Locks said :

If you want good wine (and money’s not a consideration) go to the Wine and Cheese Providore at Manuka. If you’re after beer, don’t bother with anywhere but Plonk at Fyshwick Markets. An all round okay grog shop is the one opposite the Uni Pub on University Ave in town. They also have cheap goat’s cheese on a pretty regular basis (it must go off faster than other cheese). There are a few places with a good selection of whisky. Again, if you’re not worried about price, the shop on Bouganville St in Manuka’s got a good selection.

Somehow I don’t think good quality wine or beer is quite what KLH44 has in mind. I can’t even work out what “designer alcohol” means.

buzz819 is right. Flaschengeist at The G is long gone. 2 shops ago to be exact. Maybe there is an online shop you could try?

If you want good wine (and money’s not a consideration) go to the Wine and Cheese Providore at Manuka. If you’re after beer, don’t bother with anywhere but Plonk at Fyshwick Markets. An all round okay grog shop is the one opposite the Uni Pub on University Ave in town. They also have cheap goat’s cheese on a pretty regular basis (it must go off faster than other cheese). There are a few places with a good selection of whisky. Again, if you’re not worried about price, the shop on Bouganville St in Manuka’s got a good selection.

Monster of the Deep2:27 pm 26 Jun 10

Buzz819 just jogged my memory. I remember seeing that store open in Gungahlin several years ago. Google throws up this:
http://www.truelocal.com.au/business/flaschengeist-canberra/gungahlin

Flaschengeist is what it was called, Ghost in the Flask or something, but yeah they have gone, been replaced by Sushi stores…

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