we like to have drinks in the late afternoon before dinner and was wondering if there are places we can buy Jim Beam or Jack in Europe
to take back to our hotel room?

these are very popular brands and i see them in the stores all the time (although jim beam seems to be less popular). they are not cheap however.

another idea would be to buy them at the airport...for example, arriving passengers can purchase these brands at heathrow.

If you are coming to Europe from USA, buy them in duty free at the airport.

You can get them, but, as others said, it'll be a lot cheaper to buy them duty free in the airport. Or you could branch out and try some of the local liquor (though, depending on the country, that may not be all that cheap, either).

Why not to try some scotch, preferable a pure malt, which you can get at about the same prize as mister Jack Daniels.

Wha not to try some other straigt shot from the country you are travelling? There are a lot of grain and fruit alcohols made in europe and waiting to be tested.

Please note that any sort of hard liquor is VERY expensive in europe due to high taxes (unlike wine or beer which is often much less than in the US).

So? We brought our own. Getting ice is fun as well!!!

A liter of pure alcohol is taxed at 13€ in Germany plus 16% MwSt(VAT). So taxes on one liter of your fav booze should be about 5€ Not really that much. No need to search for duty free at the airport....

Buy a bottle at the duty free while still in the U.S. You'll have the time then and it will be much cheaper. Save room in your carry-on because you will have to lug it from there.

SuzieC, you are so right re: the search for ice.! We often buy a bottle at the duty free shop before leaving US and can have a "cocktail" in our room, as most European restaurants don't start dinner until late.

Next trip (in March) to Italy we're changing planes at CDG Paris, an airport I try to avoid. How are the duty-free shops there for booze vs. JFK? And by the way, duty=free shoppers, don't forget to leave time for the package to be delivered to your plane, sometime a half hr. or more.

Willy:

You have no choice. There's no dutyfree for arrivals at CDG. And obviously there's no dutyfree for passengers on intra-EU flights.

Thks CotswaldS, I forgot to mention that I am continuing on to Italy. I seem to remember purchasing stuff at Schipol, Munich, Frankfurt, etc, in the past, even if traveling on to a EU country.

So I guess the question should be: Am I better off buying booze etc at JFK duty-free, or is do the CDG shops have equal or better prices? CDG would be easier since it would be one less leg to carry the stuff. This trip I have 2 stops in Italy (Oyvey) Or I don't even need to do this since the supermarkets in usually Italy sell whatever we need!

I priced booze at Seattle, Heathrow, and Charles de Gaulle duty free shops last September. Found no real difference in price, except for a few of the single malts that were on sale at LHR. Of course, Washington State has some of the highest liquor taxes in the nation, so perhaps that skewed my little survey.

Anyway, my conclusion was, "Why bother?" The worry of lugging breakable bottles on public transport seems like self flagellation to me. Besides, I would much rather sample the wide variety of local tipples available to broaden my horizons. If I really must get a fix of home, I can hit a McDonalds, or ask the nice bartender to pour me some Old Overshoes to make me feel im not in some nasty foreign place for a moment.

Hey nuksafe, coming back from Victoria last summer, I couldn't believe how much cheaper booze was at the Canadian Duty Free (compared to Washington). Also, you can't get the one liter in Washington, only .75 and 1.75

Viaggio,

As an example of that, the cheapest 1.75 liter bottle of vodka in a Washington State liquor store sells for about $18.50 On a recent driving trip to back east, I ran into a sale of the same cheapo brand of vodka for $8.36. I of course promptly filled the back of the car.

It's almost enough to make Washingtonians take the pledge. (At least that is apparently the intention of our legislators -- that and greed for the tax dollars.)

Sigh -- what's a drinkin' man to do?

How "duty-free" shops work varies a bit from airport to airport.But they're all required to charge duty and VAT on intra-EU passengers.

If these charges are low, and margins on the category are high, some merchants will drop their base price to attract traffic. That often happens at busy airports on products like clothes or electricals that carry VAT but no duty.

Other merchants operate dual pricing, according to the boarding card you present. At some airports, there's not even a pretence of duty-free in the Schengen departure zone.

Few merchants go out of their way to announce to you that a particular transaction isn't duty-free. But I've not found any merchant anywhere offering any kind of duty-free price on hard liquor for intra-EU passengers since duty-free was abolished for these journeys about ten years ago.

Schiphol and the BAA group in Britain tend to be exceptionally honest about explaining all this: airports in southern Europe often a great deal less so. You won't find lower prices at CDG on your way to Italy for any whisky (even Scotch) than you'll find in New York. But you might find signage trying to dupe the unwary.

hey nuksafe, that is why me and the wifey have resorted to making some of our own

You're making such a fuss over the cost of taxes on alcohol. You're buying a bottle of two of CHEAP, nasty, blended whisky. It's never, ever expensive.

Quite why you can't have a drink in the bar, or ask for one to be made and brought up to your room I'm not sure. But I'd never, ever, drink my own drinks when away...what's the point? They won't be chilled correctly, or served in the correct glassware.

Thanks again CotswaldS., I guess we won't spend our CDG 3+ hr layover looking for Beefeaters. M-kingdom2, my original reply was to SuzieC's post about the Search For Ice. That experience outweighs the niceties of chilled glasses!

Thank you, mkingdom. I was thinking the exact same thing. It is amazing how people will pay $100 to fill up their SUVs with gasoline here in the States, yet balk at spending a few dollars whilst on holiday.