Drizly Alcohol Delivery: A Win for Pants-less Drinking

You know what blows? Wearing pants. Specifically, the social obligation to do so in order to consume alcohol in public. Judge me if you must, but I am hard pressed to believe anyone enjoys wearing pants while drinking. They are a very restrictive piece of clothing that does not lend itself well to excessive bloating. Take a minute to reflect on the history of great drinkers. What were they wearing? The Romans? A sheet. The Egyptians? Half a sheet. Oliver Reed? He just took his pants off.

That was probably a weird selection of “drinkers” to cite and I highly doubt anyone under the age of forty knows who Oliver Reed is, but whatever, you get the point. I am not alone in my belief that I shouldn’t have to wear pants to drink, dammit! As my mother can attest, this is a position I’ve held for quite a while.

Alas, such a lifestyle is not always as easy as one would think. While it’s perfectly acceptable to drink in the sadness of your own living room even the most prepared drinkers will eventually run dry and be forced to put on pants to procure more adult beverages.

Or at least, that’s the way things were when I came of age! However, I am now elated to tell you those dark, archaic times are a thing of the past, St. Louis! A savior is here.

(Enter Drizly)

It’s not often St. Louis’ name appears alongside the likes of Austin, Boulder or L.A., but thanks to ours spectacularly lax drinking laws we have become one of the early adopters of Drizly, the Boston-based alcohol delivery service (Suck on that Portland!).

Drizly works by partnering with local independent liquor stores to offer up their entire inventory. In the case of St. Louis they are working with Randall’s. You place your order through their mobile app or website and their drivers bring it to you in an hour or less (theoretically). There is a $5.00 delivery fee, but they do not upcharge the product. Instead, they profit from licensing fees with these local stores.

I want to be very upfront here. My Drizly experience was not flawless, but they are still a baby company and I’m willing to deal with a few growing pains to avoid putting on pants.

So let’s get to the details.

• In STL since: 2014 (?)
• Minimum order: $20
• Order: Ancient Age, Long Hammer IPA, Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, Simple Syrup
• Time Ordered: 5:25 p.m.
• Time Delivered: 6:45ish
• Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes (ish)
• Price before tax/fee: $31.46
• Fee: $5 (delivery), $3 (tip)
• Total: 42.19

When I ordered through the app, I originally chose Benchmark (because I’m a really classy lady), but the service called me a few minutes later to inform me Benchmark was out of stock. Thus it would seem that when partnering with the independent stores, Drizly too is at the mercy of their inventory, which might not be up to date. However, she gave me some solid alternatives and I went with the equally classy Ancient Age.

When the order first arrived, I was rather pleased to see the delivery woman had managed to bypass our security gate to knock on my apartment door. While this might be cause for concern in terms of building security, my laziness calls this a win.

She was incredibly friendly; so friendly, in fact, I didn’t think to open the bag to check the order until she left. Missing was the simple syrup and Ancient Age, with Bulleit in its place. A moral debate ensued on whether to call back as Bulleit seemed like a fair upgrade for a forgotten item. However, the delivery person called back to arrange a swap that took another 15 minutes. But after giving my review, I was contacted instantly by a customer service representative who offered free delivery on my next purchase. And I can live with that.

If only for the opportunity to tell my grandchildren that “when I was your age, we had to wear pants BOTH WAYS to buy alcohol”

Hail Drizly. Long live pants-less drinking.