Best place to buy spirits in Chicago

September 29, 7:36 PMChicago Drinks ExaminerCharles Cowdery

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Before I explain why Binny's is the best place in Chicago to buy spirits, let me tell you why I would rather not have written this article at all.

Best features are the biggest cliché in lifestyle journalism. I like Examiner because it is encyclopedic. Mainly for that reason, there is nothing else quite like it on the web. In contrast, everybody does best features, especially lists. Why? Because they're easy. Why are they easy? Because they're so mindless.

This project is slightly better because, presumably, we're all going to explain our selections in more than a sentence or two, and not just make meaningless declarations. We're going to try to use 'best' as a hook to convey some useful information.

As everyone who has written a best feature knows, there is no such thing as 'best,' unless you're working from objective criteria. If 'best' means the first, or the most, or the biggest, then you can determine the best, but best features are rarely about that. They're usually about somebody's opinion, which is seldom fully explained and sometimes not explained at all. In the journalism world, 'best' sounds more credible than 'favorite,' even though calling this feature 'favorites' would be a lot more honest.

But don't let my cranky introduction lead you to believe I am damning Binny's with faint praise. What you want from a spirits retailer is two things: broad selection and low prices. Binny's is a leader in both, but what puts them over the top in a huge market like Chicago is locations. Their closest rival, Sam's Wines & Spirits, has four Chicagoland stores. Binny's has 21.

Sometimes I will drive past Binny's to get to Sam's, because Sam's generally has a slightly better selection (the prices are about the same), but Binny's usually meets my distilled spirits needs.

There are many other fine liquor merchants in Chicago and vicinity. There is a third consideration, after selection and price, and that is knowledgeable sales people. If you can find one of those, and that's important to you, hang onto him or her regardless of where they work because such persons are extremely rare. Good bluffers are common, but genuinely knowledgeable is not.

And now I think you know better than to ask me what the best bourbon is.