PHOTO: Oak n’Barrel is celebrating a year in business in Newton Centre. Photo Courtesy Oak n’Barrel
Oak n’Barrel, a liquor store in Newton Centre, recently celebrated its first year of business.
Owner Arpit Patel is excited that he’s been able to offer a new store where people are excited about finding something they couldn’t find somewhere else. He aims to offer more unique products than other liquor stores usually have, like rare Japanese whiskies or limited editions of craft beer.
“The biggest driving force for me was having a restaurant down the street,” said Patel, who owns Baramor, which has been open for five years. He noticed his customers were interested in trying new and more high-end varieties of alcohol.
“There was a gap in having a more boutique liquor store where it’s hand curated, not just a large packie,” he said.
As a name like Oak n’Barrel might imply, whisk(e)y is one of their biggest sellers. In part by using the connections he had already made as a restaurant owner, he’s been able to bring in a variety of items.
“We get whisky from the smallest Japanese distilleries a lot of people haven’t heard of,” Patel said. It tends to be on the pricier side, but customers are looking for something high value. “There’s no such thing as bottom shelf. Ninety percent of our store is curated,” he said, although they do stock a few lower-priced brands for customer convenience.
There are a lot of stores where people can buy inexpensive spirits, which is why Patel’s trying to do something else.
“We’re more of an experience driven shop,” Patel said. “We do a ton of tastings and seminars with vendors.”
He also has a craft beer club, a monthly subscription where people receive eight beers a month that are usually limited releases or less-known breweries.
Oak n’Barrel has also been able to pick out a few of their own barrels from distilleries, which means they get to offer a custom-label whisk(e)y. Each barrel has about 200 to 300 bottles of liquor in it, so a good one won’t last long.
Patel is also happy to be able to donate some of his proceeds from these expensive liquor sales to local nonprofits like the Carroll Center for the Blind, which mirrors the charitable contributions he makes through Baramor.
One issue with all of this is that people are drinking less. There was a pandemic boom in alcohol consumption, including higher-end items like whisk(e)y, that’s now receding.
On the other hand, there’s been a huge growth in non-alcoholic spirits, of which Oak n’Barrel stocks over 30. There are two kinds: fully alcohol-free, and alcohol-removed. Alcohol-removed spirits are distilled over and over.
“It’s why they’re just as expensive,” said Patel. Because the alcohol-removed kind still contains traces of liquor, individuals must be 21 to purchase them.
One reason alcohol-removed has been growing in popularity is for cocktails. Even people who want to drink alcohol want to drink less, and they like being able to replace gin or vermouth with a non-alcoholic version that tastes the same.
American liquor sales being down isn’t the only challenge. Inflation and a sense of economic unrest means consumers are warier about buying non-essential items. There’s also a law that says stores can’t sell alcohol below their invoice price. It’s another reason why he doesn’t sell a lot of lower-end products: he’ll have a higher price than the big box stores that can buy alcohol by the pallet.
The biggest issue with running the business is rent: Newton Centre, unlike some markets, isn’t a place where commercial real estate prices have gone down. In fact, they’ve only gone up.
“We’re competing with banks and big corporations for space that don’t see occupancy costs as a big line item in their balance sheet,” Patel said.
But the reason rents are high is because it’s a thriving business district, and Patel said a lot of his new customers are people who’ve visited a nearby restaurant and see Oak n’Barrel while walking around.
While owning a small shop and a restaurant isn’t without its challenges, Patel knows he wouldn’t want to go back to his previous career in finance.
“I wanted to do something on my own instead of the corporate world,” he said.