Liquor King

It’s not the worst liquor store in the world.
It’s not even the worst liquor store in Redding.
But it’s one of those liquor stores where the emphasis is on huge bottles of cheap, hard liquor and 24-​can cases of cheap, warm beer. The spirits section is a good three times larger than the wine section. At 7:00 in the evening, the other customers were already shitty-​drunk and there to reload, except for the guy in the Turkey Trot sweatshirt who was there to purchase a pack of Camel 99s.
I was there to grab a couple of bottles of vino, and as for the wine selection… let’s put it this way: There was a decent bottle of Argentinean malbec shelved just two bottles to the left of the Boone’s Farm Fuzzy Navel (which looks like fortified Gatorade).
On the plus side, the wines carried by my local supermarket were a good couple of dollars cheaper at Liquor King, but that’s not going to make me forget that they’re also a couple of dollars cheaper at Trader Joe’s, where the selection is better.
This struck me as slightly surreal: The Pakistani-​looking gent behind the counter complimented me on the wise choice of the malbec. «That’s a good bottle.»