Hand-picked, top to bottom.
A full shop of liqueurs, wine, beer, and spirits — every bottle here because I tasted it, did the research, and would pour it for myself. Below, the categories we go deepest on.
Amaro & Liqueurs
Amaro is what we're known for. Three shelves deep, more than thirty bottles at any given time — and it's the range I'm proud of, not just the famous names. The Italian classics are all here: Montenegro, Nonino, Averna, Fernet-Branca, Cynar. But so are the obscure ones — alpine herbal bottles out of the Piedmont and the Valtellina, wine-based amari, a grappa-based one from Friuli, an artichoke amaro, a rhubarb amaro, a French-recipe amargo made in Mexico, a fernet bottled in Japan, even a few made right here in the States. If a place bottles something bitter and herbal, odds are we've tracked it down.
Here's why I love this category: there's no wrong way to drink it. These bottles are built to be sipped neat as a digestivo — pour Montenegro over a big cube after dinner and that's the whole evening — or stirred into a cocktail that wakes the whole drink up. Nonino gets you halfway to a Paper Plane; Cynar gives a Negroni a savory backbone; a pour of Fernet is the bartender's handshake. The people who pour for a living around DC know this shelf, and a good chunk of it walks out the door with them. Come in not knowing where to start — that's the best part. Tell me what you like and I'll put a bottle in your hand.
Natural Wine
Natural wine, to me, just means wine made honestly — growers who farm their own grapes, ferment with native yeast, and add as little as possible on the way to the bottle. I'm not dogmatic about it. I don't need a manifesto stapled to the cork; I need it to taste good and taste like somewhere. Some of what we carry is funky and wild, some is clean and classic, and I'm glad to point you toward either.
Every bottle on this shelf has been tasted — if it's here, there's a reason. It's a well-curated selection that runs from easy weeknight pours to bottles worth saving for a dinner, and most of it lands at a price you won't think twice about. Right now that means things like La Boutanche, an everyday red built for the table; Las Jaras "Glou Glou," all crushable, chillable juice; the "Rainboat" pét-nat from Lubanzi, cloudy and lightly sparkling; and Field Recordings "Freddo," a red made to drink cold. Tell me what you usually open and I'll find you the next one.
Craft Beer
Beer is where I get to have fun. The shelf leans local and fresh — we carry the latest from Other Half Brewing, and since they brew right here in DC, a lot of it reaches us practically straight off the line. Right beside them are other local favorites like Elder Pine, who focus on high-quality ingredients and unique styles, and Stillwater's Extra Dry, a saison that drinks like nothing else. From there it runs all the way to the international best-sellers people keep coming back for — Stiegl from Austria, Carlsberg from Denmark. At last count, more than 150 craft beers and 20 ciders — and the lineup turns over constantly, so it's never quite the same shelf twice.
Single Malt, Bourbon & Rye
Whiskey is a category I keep deliberately curated — over 120 different bourbons, ryes, and single malts on the shelf at any given time. Not all whiskies are created equal, and with limited shelf space, I only want the best here. The range runs from the everyday pour you'll reach for on a Tuesday all the way up to the bottles people hunt for years — including more than our share of highly sought-after releases like the Brook Hill 13 Year Rye, Pappy Van Winkle 12 Year "Lot B," the full Springbank lineup, and our own single-barrel store pick from Rare Character. There's always something new coming in.
Mezcal & Tequila
Mezcal and tequila are the category most people don't expect to find this deep on Mount Pleasant — over fifty bottles and growing. As with everything in the store, the everyday pours sit right next to the special-occasion ones. Cazadores for a Tuesday Margarita and 400 Conejos for an honest joven mezcal you can pour any night, alongside the bottles worth pulling down: La Venenosa's Raicilla Sierra Occidental de Jalisco, made from agave varieties most of the industry has overlooked, and La Gritona Reposado, the women-led distillery in Jalisco making one of the most distinctive reposados in Mexico right now. Single-village mezcales, additive-free tequilas, small producers across the board. Tell me what you're sipping or mixing and I'll find you the bottle.
Gin
Gin is the category I find most interesting in the store — and one of the deepest, with more than forty bottles on the shelf. No other spirit carries a sense of place quite the way it does. Every distiller draws from what grows around them, and the result is a shelf you can taste your way across the world on. Barr Hill folds raw Vermont honey straight into the spirit. Menegik's, from the Italian coast, finishes with a touch of Adriatic sea water that leaves a faint brininess on the palate. Monkey 47 layers forty-seven botanicals from Germany's Black Forest. Inverroche reaches into the fynbos of South Africa's Cape Floral Kingdom — a plant family that grows almost nowhere else on earth. Empress 1908, out of British Columbia, is steeped with butterfly pea blossom and shifts from deep indigo to soft pink the moment it meets tonic. Anchoring all of it, the workhorse London Drys — Brokers, Moletto — that still make the cleanest Martini in the room. One shelf, the whole world, every bottle carrying the place it came from.
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