Easter Eggs

I’ll be dropping stuff like this all over the website moving forward, as we continue to test out various options to discourage bottle flippers and reward loyal Mission shoppers.

And, yes, I’ll be expanding the pool of products as we go.

I thought I’d go do a little public Q&A today, as I’ve had a number of repeat questions in the email queue lately, and I think posting them here would be beneficial:

Can’t I just buy $100 of whatever I want and get a discount on rare Bourbons?

Negative—and there’s a good reason. We run low margins, or sometimes even negative margins, on many popular brands in order to stay competitive.

As an example, every time someone buys a bottle of Lagavulin 16, we actually lose money. So even if you were to compile a shopping cart of $10,000 worth of booze, but it only contained low margin items, there’s a chance we would actually make zero profit after the credit card fees.

Why is Mission charging me $35 for shipping a case of booze when flat rate shipping is $17.95?

Great question! It’s a glitch in our system and if this happens to you please email me right away. When bottles are pulled from different stores, sometimes our system charges you a shipping rate per store rather than for the consolidated rate. I go through our queue every hour to fix these as they happen, so don’t worry. But, please contact us if you have any concerns. I’m hoping to have this resolved soon.

How do I place an order for “hold for future shipping” off the web?

You can select Pasadena In-Store Pick Up to hold for future shipping. However, if the bottles you want are not all in Pasadena, that won’t show as an option. You’ll need to email me and have it done manually. Currently, there’s no way to place a pick up order and consolidate bottles out of multiple stores off the web. You can however place a pick up order out of any individual location and ask to have the bottles sent to your store of choice in the notes as a work-around.

See you at 3 PM PST for Instagram Live!

-David Driscoll

Uncertified Agave Expansion

I was joking with a friend yesterday about the expansion of uncertified agave spirits, and how new companies expect thousands of customers to spend $150+ on countless new expressions with zero context and almost no understanding of the market.

“These labels have an entire book’s worth of information on them, but no one can tell me in their own words why it’s good,” I said to my friend; “It’s like a bunch of guys all repeating the same thing someone else told them, thinking that’s what connoisseurship is.”

Have you ever heard someone talk about terroir a priori, as if simply understanding what’s in the soil meant the product was good?

I was always taught to talk about wine and spirits a posteriori, meaning you start with how it tastes and then—if, and only if, it’s good—you work backward as to why it tastes the way it does.

I’m all about selling unique, small production uncertified agave spirits to the masses, so long as we’re invested in the long game, rather than just a temporary fad. In order to expand their awareness, consumers need to taste as many different agave distillates as possible, and that’s difficult when bars are closed and bottles of wild agave spirits are $100+ for what represents a complete uncertainty.

That’s why I’m absolutely thrilled with the new five bottle sample pack from Luneta Spirits (check out their fantastic website by clicking here). Focusing on unique distillates from Puebla, San Luis Potosí, and Oaxaca, they’ve put together a tasty, interesting, and educational set that won’t break the bank, and that combines wild agave staples like cuishe and tobalá with exotic offshoots like papalometl, fermented in bull hides and distilled in tree trunks!

All the specs are on the website, along with photos and flavor charts that are detailed, but simple to understand.

I was so impressed I immediately reached out to Jed Wolf for an Instagram Live date, which is happening tomorrow at 3 PM on the @missionliquor site.

Check it out.

-David Driscoll

Start Buying Brunello—Seriously!

This past Saturday, I ate inside a restaurant for the first time in over a year.

My parents drove down from the Central Valley and, since we are all now vaccinated, my wife and I joined them at Angelini Osteria: for me personally, the best restaurant in all of Los Angeles.

We drank cocktails made with the completely underrated Etna Bitter, Contratto Vermouth, and Prosecco. Yes, of course, we ate the famous Pasta al Limone (pictured above, because a bowl of delicious pasta is always more photogenic than a piece of meat).

But the real star of the show? The bottle of 2016 Argiano Brunello di Montaclino that I brought with me from Mission, to pair along side the massive, rosemary-scented Bistecca alla Fiorentina that we split between the table.

You wanna talk about a showstopper, this bottle was all anyone could talk about—both my parents, as well as our server who we shared a glass with. After decanting for about forty-five minutes, it was a symphony of sour cherry, dusty earth, and savory spices, permeating our palates in waves with every sip.

All this from a $50 bottle that is only going to get better over time, so you can guess what I’ll be buying more of later this week.

Eric Guido from Vinous said it point blank last November: “There is no other vintage or category of wine that I’ve been looking forward to more than the 2016 Brunello di Montalcinos. The big question is: Do the 2016s live up to our expectations?”

The answer, my friends, is a resounding: YES.

From my personal experience, let me tell you that buying great vintages from the world’s best wine regions is like a savings account. Not simply because the wines will appreciate, but because you’ll be happy you have them down the line. There’s not one person in the wine business who isn’t kicking themselves for not buying more 2005 and 2009 Bordeaux. It’s just the nature of the beast; you always wish you would have bought more when you had the chance.

I’m telling you right now: you’ll wish you would have bought more 2016 Brunello by the time 2021 is over.

The wines are incredibly approachable right now, offering a seductive and often hedonistic mouthful of red fruits and supple tannins, but with balance and grace. These are not California fruit bombs. These are Sangiovese-based wines with both power and elegance, capable of pairing with a variety of fantastic foods, from grilled meats to pasta ragù.

And we’ve only got more coming. If you were planning to put $1000 into your retirement this month, I’d carve out $300 of that for 2016 Brunello, if you can.

That’s what I’m doing, at least.

-David Driscoll

No Country For Old Men

There’s an insightful moment in the Oscar-winning film No Country For Old Men where the sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones, discusses the nature of Javier Bardem’s violence with another member of Texas law enforcement. The officer says to him:

“He shoots the desk clerk one day, and walks right back in the next and shoots a retired army colonel. Strolls right back into a crime scene. Who would do such a thing? How do you defend against it?

When the logistics of your everyday reality begin to change beyond any sort of traditional pattern or framework, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed—even scared!

As a retailer, how do you defend against a whiskey shortage today? By purchasing more whiskey to bolster that demand, right?

Wrong.

Because as soon as you stock up on supplies, the demand changes to hard seltzer. As soon as you buffer your store with hard seltzer, the demand changes from alcohol over to cannabis. Then from cannabis to something else.

The hard truth is this: today’s younger generations are not following any sort of traditional pattern that traditional marketers can defend against. Need more proof? Today’s LA Times spells it out:

A new study, based on a February online survey of more than 2,000 consumers, showed that preferences are changing rapidly between millennials and the younger generation when it comes to how they want to spend their leisure time.

That spells serious trouble for Hollywood because it’s no longer about finding the right kind of TV show or movie—superheroes, or stoner comedies, etc—rather, it’s a complete shift in preference of media:

Twenty six percent of Gen Zers in the survey cited playing video games as their favorite entertainment activity, compared to 14% for listening to music, 12% for browsing the internet and 11% for engaging on social media. Only 10% said they would rather watch a movie or TV show at home.

That compares to millennials (born 1983 to 1996), 18% of whom chose watching movies and TV shows as their preferred mode of entertainment. Video games were the entertainment option of choice for 16% of millennials.

If these trends stick, it could mean that video will become less important to consumers.

Not only are traditional mediums becoming less important to young consumers, traditional markers of quality are out the window.

How do I know this? Because I see it every single day in the booze world, as brands with horrible-tasting products become media sensations overnight.

But I also see it everywhere around me.

Let’s look at sports. Traditional boxing viewership is on the decline, as younger fight fans have moved over to MMA. But, this past weekend, YouTuber Jake Paul was able to draw plenty of fans over to his amateur boxing sideshow, complete with mediocre boxing on display.

The point: today more young people would rather watch a terrible boxer square off against another inexperienced boxer because he’s a famous social media star, rather than watch two experienced professionals duel in a serious fight.

What does that mean for competition?

Look at what Europe’s elite soccer teams are attempting to pull off: a rogue super league comprised of only the most famous clubs, competing against each other for huge ratings. Who cares about the constricting paradigm of traditional sports anymore? Let’s just cash in while we can and give people what they want to see, even if it means nothing in the grand scope of national competition.

-David Driscoll

108 Days Later

I want you to imagine the following situation, which I’m sure will be very simple because—if you’re anything like me—this scenario accurately spells out your new everyday reality:

• Since the COVID-19 shutdown, your drinking has gone way up.

• Just like toilet paper, Clorox wipes, and Lysol, you’ve gone out of your way to stock up on your favorite booze—to the point that it’s become a bit of a game.

• After a year of lockdown and continual stockpiling, you don’t really need another bottle of booze. But if you see something special, you’ll grab it.

• When you do need something basic—like Knob Creek or Grey Goose—you just add it to your next Instacart delivery, rather than heading over to the liquor store. A trip to Mission is reserved for something out of the ordinary or rare.

I’ve been back in retail for exactly 108 days now and I see two troubling patterns emerging for independent liquor stores as a result of our COVID-19 evolution:

• Unless you’re able to make a compelling case for why customers should buy their everyday booze from you (i.e. crazy pricing, exclusivity, free shipping or ease of delivery), more and more people are going to treat alcohol like groceries.

• With more national retailers like Whole Foods, Target, and Costco expanding their product sets to include boutique spirits, not to mention the emergence of 3rd party sites like Drizly, more and more sales are being siphoned away from wine and spirits retailers as consumers include wine and spirits as part of their general online grocery shopping.

• That leaves independent retailers with the overflow, meaning consumers are only looking for something rare or out of the ordinary.

• Which creates the gigantic, panic-inducing Catch 22 that is coming for every independent retailer in the industry: you can only get the rare bottles from distribution by depleting sales of everyday items, but your customers only want the rare bottles and have chosen to buy their everyday items elsewhere.

Fortunately, we’re in a pretty stable position here at Mission due to our size and scale, but we can’t ignore what’s in the rear view mirror.

This is the question I’m asking myself repeatedly: What’s more likely moving forward?

• That independent retailers will eventually take back some of the general business from larger competitors?

• Or that larger competitors will eventually take over the boutique business from smaller independents?

But that’s really a rhetorical question, isn’t it? We’ve got a lot of work to do.

-David Driscoll

A Sneaky Deal

When you’re new to Bordeaux, every bottle can be a nerve-wracking and overwhelming experience.

You might open the bottle at the wrong time in the wine’s evolution.

It might be corked after you’ve aged it for years.

It might just not be that good.

But you can be sure that you paid a hefty sum for it, regardless; and nothing about the singular experience is guaranteed.

In my opinion, the rise of single malt and Bourbon over the last decade is the direct result of that uncertainty, and it’s left me with one crystal clear conclusion: most of the guys buying only whiskey today do NOT really drink.

I’m not talking about collectors flipping bottles. I’m talking about the motivation behind the spirits neo-renaissance: you don’t ever have to finish an open bottle because whiskey keeps. You can dole out thimble-sized pours for years, maximizing the investment like a hoarder. Hence, why these same consumers are not interested in wine.

To be into Bordeaux, you have to actually drink; because once you open the bottle, the clock is ticking. The whole point of Bordeaux is the meal, which means you also have to be into food. Hence, why I’m heavily into Bordeaux. There is no whiskey in the world as satisfying as the right bottle of Bordeaux with the right piece of meat, so I’m always willing to risk $100 on that potential high.

Every now and again, I get questions from consumers about a gateway bottle of wine; one that might help open their eyes to what Bordeaux can offer without breaking the bank. Since the finest bottles of aged Bordeaux are often three-to-four figures per bottle, taking that leap of faith (in conjunction with all the possibilities I listed above) is easier when the bottle is under $100.

Well…one of those bottles just walked in the door recently and we’ve actually got quite a good price.

Domaine de Chevalier is one of the most underrated and overlooked properties in all of Bordeaux. I was once gifted a bottle of the 1990 vintage by my former colleague Jim Chanteloup after my first big holiday season in retail. I had no idea what it was at the time, as I had just started learning about Bordeaux and was simply trying to get a handle on the Médoc's classified growths, but I remember him saying: "Trust me; this is a really great bottle."

Back then, the senior wine guys I worked with saw the Chevalier rouge as an insider's claret; a poor man's Haut-Brion. "This property is completely underrated," I recall my colleague Ralph Sands telling me once; "The wines can live forever." The word "secret" is definitely part of the vernacular when speaking about the domaine. Known as "the secret garden" due to its location, the vineyards are planted within a clearing in the middle of a forest, the boundaries of which protect the vines from extreme weather. What's becoming less of a secret, however, is the value of the domaine's great wines—both white and red.

It's the stony, highly-mineral soil, enclosed within a border of forestry, that provides the ideal conditions for top quality wine; the results of which have increased in quality during each decade under Oliver Bernard's ownership. Through his careful expansion, calibration, and improvements in the cellar, the true potential and character of Chevalier has been lifted to new heights and the domaine's lore has begun to permeate the far reaches of wine culture.

2004 wasn’t the best vintage of the last twenty years, but it wasn’t the worst either. The wines were simply classic, rather than ripe and supple like 2005 and 2009. As a result, you won’t pay an arm and a leg for the bottle. Check the reviews though, and you’ll see 94, 95, 94 across the board (if that’s important to you).

I’m hoping to eventually expand the Bordeaux selection at Mission, but before we can do that we need to find more folks who actually like to party.

Until then, look for the occasional sneaky deal like this one.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Repost: Talking RTDs with Aaron Polsky From Livewire

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What if bartenders could have their own record label, but instead of releasing albums or singles, they released cocktails?

Each release would have a title and artwork—just like a record.

Each cocktail would be distributed around the country—just like a record—allowing the bartender to build his or her reputation with drinkers—just like a rockstar.

That is bartender Aaron Polsky’s vision for Livewire: a new RTD (ready-to-drink) company that is signing up bartenders to create and market their own signature drinks as part of an ongoing expansion into canned cocktails.

Having dusted a serious amount of Livewire cans over the last week, I can tell you: Aaron is on to something.

Listen to our conversation to learn more about the project.

-David Driscoll

Hodge Podge

While I was watching the Tekashi 69 documentary Supervillian on HBO last night, I had to distract myself with something to conceal my utter disappointment in humanity, so I ended up watching YouTube videos of Arnold talking about cigars. I found this clip, which completely turned my mood around, allowing me to fall asleep in peace.

There’s not enough time or space to explain hip hop artist Tekashi 69 to you if you don’t know who he is, but to summarize: he’s a modern celebrity—in the vain of the Paul brothers on YouTube—with no real talent, except for understanding how controversy can create cash. By being the biggest piece of shit possible, he has made an obscene amount of money.

What really struck me during the last episode was how Tekashi shrugged off bad reviews from guardian music review sites like Pitchfork, along with extreme disses from industry figureheads like Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. His answer: the people who care about those opinions aren’t the ones making him money.

Bingo.

There was a time with wine and whiskey where a positive review from a major critic would entice thousands of drinkers to run out and grab a bottle, but today that’s less and less the case (and we’re moving less and less cases, as a result!).

Hence, when you wonder how certain liquids (many of which are terrible) can achieve extreme popularity in the market, despite lackluster reviews and negative press, you begin to understand the modern world of booze marketing. Everything that you thought mattered no longer matters. In the span of a few years, the rules have changed.

Today the most lucrative marketing movements are not controlled by the media gatekeepers. Instead, they’re birthed on social media by young consumers who subscribe to a completely different set of parameters, no longer contingent upon professional expertise or experience.

Ocean Spray and Fleetwood Mac didn’t experience a recent revival because a critic said they were good. Rather, they had a gigantic surge in sales because a 37 year old guy on TikTok rode a skateboard through Idaho.

If you’re still sending your wines to the Wine Spectator, or depending on the Whisky Advocate for your big break, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Today, I see more sales happening as a result of Reddit boards than I do critical reviews.

-David Driscoll