When I first reviewed the Flaviar whiskey delivery service in March of 2020, we lived in a completely different world — Pre-“Tiger King,” pre-Omicron, and pre-President Biden. But times have changed, and so has Flaviar, expanding their service to offer three different membership tiers.
3 Flaviar membership tiers
- Bottle Hunter
- Knowledge Seeker
- All Access
As you might imagine, each membership has more perks than the last, but we’re going to start with what they have in common.
What you get with a Flaviar membership
“From the beginning, Flaviar has been about creating a community,” says Andrej Sinkovic, a spokesperson for Flaviar. “When it started in 2012, the idea was an IMDb.com for spirits. Over time, it developed into a membership.”
No matter what tier of Flaviar membership you choose, you’ll pick up access to distillery tours worldwide and live and on-demand virtual tastings. If you’re new to these liquors, you can learn more about the drink you already enjoy, and if you’re already a snob, you can smile smugly to yourself about minor disagreements you might have. Seriously, do whatever you make happy.
The Flaviar online store
More importantly, it gives you free shipping on orders over $60 and discounted price on liquors in the Flaviar store. How much of a discount, you ask? Well, they can’t say.
Flaviar – Shop the Selection
“Prices can vary dramatically by region, product, and distributor,” Sinkovic explains. “We can’t guarantee uniform prices nationwide. When you enter your address at the checkout, our system assigns your order to the cheapest possible vendor who can ship to your state.”
Annoyingly, the only way to see how much you’re saving is to put whiskey in your basket in an anonymous account and then compare it to the prices in a logged-in account you’re using with a different browser. But, just browsing my favorite liquors (like Ledaig 10 Year) with a temporary membership they granted me, I could see that prices were comparable, or slightly cheaper, than my local stores — and with the free shipping, that makes it a tempting option.
Who is Flaviar best for?
Even with Flaviar’s free shipping and savings, I’d be hard-pressed to drink enough alcohol in a year to make the subscription worth it — but I also live in Brooklyn, NY, within walking distance of a half-dozen high-end liquor stores with massive selections. If you live somewhere a bit more rural or are simply new to exploring liquor, Flaviar might be the cheapest and best way to explore a potential lifelong passion.