Astoria Liquors

Friendly knowledgeable serviceworkers. Good selections for wines! And buy your lotto ticket as you check out!

They have great plum wine and sake. Takara and onigoroshi. When I was working in Japan, I used to drink them a lot. Takara is the well know and best plum wine from Japan and oni goroshi is super popular one in Japan! Taste great! Recommend them!

Don’t let the shabby exterior fool you, this place is quite decent and offers their stock at the lower end of the market price.
Liquor wise, they have all the basics in a wide variety. If you are trying to find a less popular/​mainstream ingredient for a cocktail recipe, I would suggest you look somewhere else.
3.5 stars

This shop is in the very small area of Astoria that looks like Compton in the 90’s — the Best Yet supermarket plaza. But it’s actually a real gem.
I went in for the first time a few weeks ago and was surprised at the huge selection. They have many varieties of wine and liquor and the staff is knowledgeable about everything they carry.
On a subsequent visit, they had a tasting going on and the manager encouraged us to try multiple types of wine. I had five cups of wine in rapid succession. I then appreciated that the manager brought my purchase out to my car since I completely forgot it. This is my new go-​to store.

Yo Jando, you’re right… this store has decent prices and liquors I’ve never seen before (mostly russian & greek).

It looks seedy and its sure located in a shady area (with exception to the next door Best Yet supermarket) but Astoria Liquors has some of the best selection of booze for reasonable prices.
I stumbled upon here in my quest for an ATM and while purchasing a lottery ticket I noticed all of the bottles of alcohol that had prices that I could barely believe. A bottle of Barcadi Mojito Mix for example was only $ 19.99 for a half gallon, one that goes for nearly $ 7 – 10 more in the city.
Jolson’s is probably the most popular one in the Ditmars area due to its location, but this quiet store owned by a nice older Greek man is a mini diamond in the rough. At some point, I will have to come back here and purchase my future bar’s worth of alcohol. If there is any knock on the place is that its not so easy finding specialty brands or specific flavors as they seem to be bunched or scattered throughout the store.
Oh and they’re one of the few (rare) stores that actually DELIVER as well. Wow.