Turnpike Wine & Spirits

Turnpike Wine & Spirits has the best wine and liquor selection — and the best prices — in Oak Ridge.
Now, Tennessee is not my favorite place to buy booze. The state’s liquor laws restrict sale of wine to liquor stores (not grocery stores), don’t permit liquor stores to sell beer (except for high-​alcohol beers that aren’t allowed in grocery stores), limit retailers to just one store location (no chains are allowed, and stores can’t even warehouse their merchandise off of their premises), and liquor stores can’t sell anything except booze (no corkscrews, no chips, no wine glasses — just wine and distilled spirits). As a result of those things (not to mention the state’s long-​standing cultural attitudes toward alcohol), Tennessee liquor stores tend to be pretty basic, and you often can find better prices, better selection, and more knowledgeable staff in other states…
However, I live in Oak Ridge so I buy a lot of my wine and other potables here, and Turnpike is as good as it gets in Oak Ridge. They’re not real big, but they’re the biggest liquor store in town, they carry a decent variety of wines, and they keep their prices competitive. I especially appreciate their large selection of 1.5-L bottles of Australian wine at good prices. The staff are happy to engage in interesting conversation when they’re not busy with tasks like running the cash register and helping customers carry their purchases to their cars (and they do provide a lot of that kind of help).
On a recent visit I was blown away to hear NPR News playing on the radio — not a typical East Tennessee experience.