What Sample Up to Six Actually Means, and Why It Changes How You Buy Spirits

The rules, plainly

Any bottle sitting out on our main floor can be tasted for four dollars. That is nearly everything we carry.

A taste is ten milliliters, about a third of an ounce, served in a one ounce glass. The glass is bigger than the pour on purpose. You need room to swirl it and get your nose in there.

Anything retailing above two hundred and fifty dollars is kept separately and priced individually for tasting, usually somewhere between five and twenty dollars depending on the bottle.

A small number of things are not available for tasting: a few very limited high-dollar releases, and our wine selection.

Six is not arbitrary. It is the number of tastes where most people's palate stops giving them reliable information. Past that, everything starts tasting like the last thing you drank.

Why this is not a bar

We are not selling you a night out. There is no seating for the evening, no cocktail menu, no tab.

The tasting exists for exactly one reason: so that the bottle you carry out is one you already know you like. That is it. Every part of how we are set up serves that.

It also means we are not incentivized to talk you into the expensive thing. If you taste the sixty dollar bottle next to the twenty six dollar bottle and you like the cheaper one better, you should buy the cheaper one. That happens constantly and it is a good outcome.

What actually happens when you come in

Somebody will ask if it is your first time in. That is not a sales script, it is a genuine question, because how we work is different enough that a two minute explanation saves you a lot of confusion.

From there it goes wherever you want it to. Some people arrive with a specific bottle in mind and want to confirm it before buying. Some people say "I like bourbon but I want to try something else" and hand the whole thing over. Both work.

Give yourself more time than you think you need. Nearly everybody does.