Liquor by any other name may sell the same but these closed and abandoned ‘package’ stores couldn’t succeed in what most say is a can’t-miss business.

The OTHER White Castle

What the heck is a “package store”, anyway? Why not call a spade a spade? Blame the lingering effects of the Twenty-first Amendment that repealed the Eighteenth Amendment (aka Prohibition) but left alcohol marketing in the hands of individual states. Local idioms and societal culture led to retail outlets being named Package stores, ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control) stores, and South Carolina’s famous Red Dot stores.

Flickr member Robby Virus captured the shuttered store above, located in Omaha, Nebraska, in July of 2016. Sad to say that even including “package” and “liquor” on the sign couldn’t stanch the flow of red ink.

Don’t Drink OR Drive

Prohibition was literally the Law of the Land for over a decade – and for some states, even longer: Mississippi didn’t relax its state-wide booze ban ’til 1966. Other states such as Connecticut went the Package Store (“packie”, in local parlance) route, as shown in the above shot of an abandoned gas station / package store combo (“two great tastes that taste great together”) snapped by Flickr member Greg (63vwdriver) in the summer of 2016.

Dispeptic

What isn’t rusted is faded (and vice versa) at this VERY long-abandoned market and package store in Belcher Square, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. How long? Well, that particular Pepsi logo was used between 1940 and 1950 so… yeah. Flickr member Lisa DeLange (LisaSez) captured the desolate, post-apocalyptic storefront in December of 2009.

Coors’s, Foiled Again

You won’t find any Coors (or any Coors-competitors) in this ramshackle abandoned package store in Federalsburg, MD. Plenty of free parking, though… just don’t park a hot vehicle over those mangy weeds. Flickr member Adam Myers (adamkmyers) snapped this way overgrown and woefully understaffed wobbly-pop shop in the fall of 2016.

Packaged Deal

This blockhouse-like abandoned package store in Watertown, MA would make a great anti-zombie fortress, even without shelves stocked with “adult beverages”. We can’t say why this structure, seemingly built to withstand an atomic apocalypse, couldn’t withstand the mid-2000s retail apocalypse. Flickr member ChinatownKicks recorded the concrete cube corner colossus for posterity in May of 2008.

Joe’s Deli-cate Condition

It’s a Package Store, it’s a Deli, it’s… the poster child for abandoned shops! It’s not certain which of the two buildings dispensed drinks while the other served eats but both have seen better days, MANY days ago. Likely the same can be said for “Joe”.

Flickr member DjD-567 visited the decrepit and decayed short-bus of strip malls in Brimfield, MA back in October of 2011. “The inside is in much worse shape, from what I saw through the window,” states the photographer. Contrast that with the still sharp-looking sign out front – Joe shoulda got his sign guy to work on the interior.

Flown the Coop

Signs are known for their staying power; sometimes a store’s sign manages to hang (literally) around longer than the store itself. Such was the case at Cooper’s Package Store on New Park Avenue in Hartford. CT. Nothing lasts forever, mind you. “I’m so glad you got a picture of this sign,” stated one commenter at Flickr member Pixel (improbcat)’s post dated September 17 of 2008. “I went there to photograph it a few weeks ago and it’s gone.” One might say, this package has been de-livered, de-listed, and deleted. We’d buy Pixel a drink in tribute to their excellent timing but… oh.

Following a Supreme Court of India ruling that bars must be a minimum of 500 meters away from highways, one intrepid watering hole wrapped itself in a 250-meter maze to effectively circumvent the law. Handed down earlier this month, the ruling has closed down liquor-serving establishments across the country prompting some to get creative.

Owners of the Aishwarya Bar in North Paravoor, a Kochi suburb, maintain: “We have done nothing illegal. The plot behind the bar also belongs to the owner and we have constructed an extended way to reach the bar. Now it is 520 meters from the highway. We are set to approach the circle inspector of excise with the new route map to authorize the reopening of the bar.”

Perhaps most remarkably: since the purpose of the law relates to walking distance (rather than linear), officials have given their blessing to this unusual solution — he intent of the legislation, after all, is to reduce intoxicated driving accidents. With that potential code violation remedied, the only accusation left leveled against the establishment related to changing around the property without a building permit, resulting in a small fine.

The solid-walled fence shaping the labyrinth was installed at minimal cost in a matter of days, expanding into adjacent property also owned by the bar’s manager. Pub crawlers, meanwhile, may find themselves somewhat lost when loaded, but at least there are no dead ends. However, bars like this one may still find themselves with fewer customers since the federal ruling also prohibits roadside signage directing drinkers to pubs. Other specific exceptions have been granted on a case-by-case basis, but this particular solution may lead to a series of similar approaches.

It rains more in Berlin than it does in England, especially during the cold and dreary months of winter, so enticing Germans to vacation in Mexico with a cloud that literally rains tequila is probably pretty effective. And this isn’t just a cloud-shaped installation that pours a mist of tequila out of a showerhead or something equally predictable – it’s a real cloud of tequila condensation that turns liquid in response to vibration, timed to coincide with real-life rain outside.

United States-based creative agency LAPIZ teamed up wit the Mexico Tourism Board to create an ad specifically tailored to boost German tourism to the sunny, margarita-soaked nation. Installed in Urban Spree, a Berlin art gallery, the project mimics the look of natural clouds by containing condensation within a cumulus-shaped sculpture. You can see the mist rolling off the cloud in Instagram videos of the installation.

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A flash of lightning heralds an oncoming tequila storm, and onlookers gather to hold a shot glass under the cloud. It’s the third year in a row that Lapiz teamed up with the tourism board to get Germans to Mexico, and it seems certain that this would be their most successful effort yet. Who doesn’t like free tequila? “This time, we combined the Mexican thing Germans love most, tequila, with the type of weather they like the least, rain, and created the Tequila Cloud,” they explain.

It’s Suntory time – on the incredibly intricate, CNC-milled, pagoda-shaped rocks.  The Japanese whisky brand famously touted by Bill Murray in the film ‘Lost in Translation’ has enlisted the services of a 5-axis CNC mill to craft miniature works of art in ice, including replicas of the Statue of Liberty and Michelangelo’s David.

The centerpiece of Suntory’s “3D Rocks” campaign is a teeny-tiny, amazingly detailed version of Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji temple. Watch it in progress in the video above.

Suntory customers were asked to submit their own designs, and the winners were whisked to a secret location in Tokyo where they received a drink featuring their own creation in ice once it was complete.

The CNC router was kept chilled to a temperature of -7 degrees Celsius to keep the ice from melting while the machine was running.

It’s almost a shame to see the whisky splashing over these ephemeral works of art, knowing that they’re inevitably about to melt away.

These 11 abandoned liquor stores are hangovers, as it were, from an era when Mom & Pop stores sold the kind of products Mom & Pop forbade you from buying.

Broadway The Hard Way

(image via: Minneapolis StarTribune)

Minneapolis’ Broadway Liquor Outlet may be outta liquor but it’s not outta luck, at least not yet. The striking photo above was taken by David Toles of the StarTribune. Toles’ dramatically tilted composition features the store silhouetted against an ominously cloudy sky, though this year no tornadoes descended to finish their destructive work.

Greening Of Detroit

(images via: Click Click Click)

If a tree can grow in Brooklyn, an abandoned liquor store in Detroit can be reborn as a garden shed. Not just ANY garden shed, mind you, but a pastoral-ly repainted edifice emblazoned with environmentally friendly graphics instead of the graffiti one more typically finds in today’s Motor City. We’ll drink to that!

(image via: Click Click Click)

Andra Johnson in association with The Greening Of Detroit volunteered for the re-purposing project which took place on July 30th, 2010. It must have been thirsty work cleaning, prepping and painting the mid-century building under the hot summer sun. If only there was a store that sold cold, refreshing beverages nearby… oh.

Florida Dry

(images via: Southern Exposure)

The former St. Mary’s Liquors store on U.S. 17 in Nassau County, Florida, molders away quietly alongside the also-abandoned Riverside Motel about a mile south of the Georgia state border. Historically, Georgia generally prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sunday – counties could hold local referendums to decide the issue but until recently the results usually upheld the status quo. That attitude is beginning to change, however, and if the county just north of Nassau flipped from dry to wet Sundays, it could explain St. Mary’s Liquors’ sinking fatally into a sea of red ink.

Too Big To Fail?

(image via: Pete Jelliffe)

Bigger isn’t always better, just ask the owners of this ridiculously massive abandoned liquor store – if you can find them. Simply stocking the multistory edifice would cost a king’s ransom and if there should ever be an earthquake, the tsunami of spilled alcohol (cirrhosis of the river?) surging out the front doors would be enough to make even the sternest teetotaler weep… especially if it then caught on fire.

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Last Call 11 Drunk Dry Abandoned Liquor Stores