It’s fast becoming a pain in the ass. My outlet for buying liquor is the Self-service BevCo outlet (Kerala State Beverages Corporation BevCo for short) in Gandhinagar. This is the closest Bevco outlet that is self-service to me. The reason I like the self-service ones is because I hate standing in a queue at the smaller outlets which are more in number and I have one closer to me. But the snake like queue outside them are a blight on society and it’s ridiculous to stand like that for 30-40 minutes, sometimes longer and then ask them what they have.

I prefer this – no rush, no fuss! Go in, pick a basket, browse through the aisles and pick your poison and then go and pay. A few months ago they started the option of accepting payments through debit and credit cards – YES – and that was convenient. Yeah, until mid 2017, a government beverages outlet only accepted cash! And mind you, we also had a demonetization issue in between! Anyways, what my issue with them is that they have such limited selection of beers now. No Budweiser or Magnum, Miller or Tuborg in the last few visits and this weekend when I went no Carlsberg or Heineken either. Foster is available but I hate that.

But they have the Indian brands – Goa, Black Fort, Hunter, British Empire and lots of Kingfisher! Lots of it. And some new brand that I hadn’t seen or heard of before. I am not 100% sure but the other outlets seem to have more stuff and stuff that I want. I might have to check out ConsumerFed’s Liquor store or another self-service BevCo because others have said that they have better stock.