Booze on the islands

Heading down in a few weeks and are putting in our provisioning orders, one struggle I'm having is beer/liquor. Essentially I'm looking for simple stuff - caribe, corona light etc. but Tico's doesn't seem to have any of these, then through riteway prices get a little crazy (like $50/case for carona). Is there someplace others have used? We would pick it up too, but we are leaving out of Hodges so were trying to avoid the trip all the way to road town.

Caribbean Cellars has Carib and Corona. They will deliver

http://www.caribbeancellars.com/store/retail/category/name/beer

Check out Caribbean Cellars. I've used them for every charter I've done in the BVI. Good service.

www.caribbeancellars.com/pricelist.pdf

Hi Guppie! Send an email to me at Relish Gourmet Food & Wine (service@relishgourmetfood.com). We are a new shop in town (opened last November) and we do provisioning for villas and boats (beverages and non-perishables; we haven't ventured into fresh produce and meats yet!). We will get all of your beverages whether we have your items, or we have to source them from any other vendor (Caribbean Cellars, Tico and Riteway) and deliver everything together at one time, ON TIME, and on one invoice. I'd be happy to email you our prices and we do NOT charge $50 for a case of Corona!! Looking forward to hearing from you! Cheers!

A word on liquor prices. At one time booze in the BVI was a bargain but now most hard liquor is now close to US prices. The government attempted to raise the duty on hard liquor and the vendors raised prices to cover but when the government recended the duty it appears that the vendors did not return prices to their previous level. A 1.75L of Dewars is a dollaer higher than my local package store. Cruzan liters are still under $10 but almost everything else is close to US retail.

Also watch out for the price of mixers. I found several at Riteway and Harbor Market where the case price was higher than four 6 packs.

We stocked up last time we were down. Cleared out RTW's stash of Hendricks gin.

10 years ago I used to pay $8.15 for a quart of absolut vodka <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Woof.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Woof.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Woof.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Woof.gif" alt="" />

Glenn,

The so called "sin tax" bill was passed yesterday hiking liquor tax to 15% and cigarettes to 25%. See story in BVI News

Another article of interest: Tax the visitors, relieve the residents.

It will be interesting to see if these percentages will be added to the already hiked prices.

I want to know just how they plan to collect "15% per gallon"? Will they pour out a pint and a half? Where will they put it? Does the customs officer get to sell it off in lew of pay they way it was done in the 17th century? <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Sounds like yet another reason for people to charter out of STT..