Bill Toland's coverage of recent PLCB goings-on included a bit at the end about how I and some of my fellow cocktail and spirits enthusiasts are helping improve the spirits selection at the PLCB, so I wanted to expand further on what we've been doing.
First, as the article states, we did provide an in-depth list of spirits we thought would make good additions to PLCB shelves, extracted mostly from our own experience and our sense of what the spirits and cocktail communities like to see. These ranged from notable whiskeys, rums and tequilas to niche cordials that are necessary to make many classic and craft cocktails. The addition of these products, we felt, would bring the PLCB's selection up to par with your average specialty liquor store in other states. Some of these products are already showing up in the online store, as I've noted in my past catalog update posts, and many more are working their way through the procurement pipeline.
I will stress here that we deserve less credit for getting the PLCB interested in specialty spirits than the article suggested. They were quite aware that their product selection was painfully "mainstream", and there were already moves occurring internally to get a specialty spirits program going. In fact they reached out to us, as well as other enthusiasts and experts, to ask for advice--it wasn't like we just sent them some recommendations out of the blue.
In the future, the PLCB is making plans to reconfigure their Wine Advisory Council to cover spirits as well, so these recommendations from the community will come through a more official body.
My feeling from the past few months of working with them is that the guys at the top now really are interested in addressing the needs of the enthusiast crowd, and have every intention of following through with their promised product additions.
First, as the article states, we did provide an in-depth list of spirits we thought would make good additions to PLCB shelves, extracted mostly from our own experience and our sense of what the spirits and cocktail communities like to see. These ranged from notable whiskeys, rums and tequilas to niche cordials that are necessary to make many classic and craft cocktails. The addition of these products, we felt, would bring the PLCB's selection up to par with your average specialty liquor store in other states. Some of these products are already showing up in the online store, as I've noted in my past catalog update posts, and many more are working their way through the procurement pipeline.
I will stress here that we deserve less credit for getting the PLCB interested in specialty spirits than the article suggested. They were quite aware that their product selection was painfully "mainstream", and there were already moves occurring internally to get a specialty spirits program going. In fact they reached out to us, as well as other enthusiasts and experts, to ask for advice--it wasn't like we just sent them some recommendations out of the blue.
In the future, the PLCB is making plans to reconfigure their Wine Advisory Council to cover spirits as well, so these recommendations from the community will come through a more official body.
My feeling from the past few months of working with them is that the guys at the top now really are interested in addressing the needs of the enthusiast crowd, and have every intention of following through with their promised product additions.
