Selection over volume
The shop keeps roughly a third of what a big-box liquor store carries, on purpose. Every bottle on the floor was chosen by someone who tasted it against its neighbors, not by what a distributor pushed hardest that quarter.
Staff are paid the same whether they sell the fifteen-dollar bottle or the hundred-dollar one, which is the whole reason they can tell you honestly when the cheaper one is the better buy for what you actually want.
We card everyone who looks under forty. It is not personal, and it does not slow the line down as much as people expect.
