Beer delivery in Toronto

Beer delivery is one of those concepts that's so simple it's absolutely brilliant: It's beer, and it's brought right to your house.

Much ado is made about the myriad places to go to buy or to drink booze in this city, but there's something to be said for the ability to have the good stuff brought directly to you--whether you're at a party and suddenly, horrifically find yourself out of booze or whether you write about beer and prefer to imbibe alone in the dark with minimal human interaction--we can all appreciate the convenience of home delivery.

Whatever your reason, here's a half a dozen services that can bring everyone's favourite liquids (and more) right to your door.

ALWAYS DIAL A BOTTLE 416.890.7451

Delivery of all Beer Store and LCBO products via phone, text message, or an online form within one hour, with a disclaimer that busier times may mean longer waits. Also offers delivery of "grocery store products" like soft drinks, cigarettes, snacks, and water.

Hours: Monday-Saturday until 9:30pm, Sunday until 4:30pm
Rates: $8.00 flat rate, plus 10% of the cost of every item you order from the LCBO or Beer Store. There's an additional fee of $5.00 if you're ordering from a hotel and if you want to order for a set time in the future it's another $5.00. Smokes and snacks are free of a delivery charge. Cash only.

Other details:This service boasts no minimum order size. So if you really need it and you don't mind spending the extra eight bucks, you can get that single tall boy of Labatt Maximum Ice delivered directly to your office.

THE BEER GUY

Set up an account and shop the LCBO and Beer Store online then order via a form that seems to be pretty comprehensive--I tested it with a few local seasonal offerings currently in the LCBO and they were available. Their website promises delivery in under two hours.

Hours: Monday-Saturday untill 9:45pm, Sundays until 4:45pm.
Rates: A $10 flat fee for delivery within the city plus an additional $1.50 for every 12 pack over 36 beers, every additional liquor or wine bottle over three bottles, and a $1.50 charge if you require a stop at the Beer Store and the LCBO.

Other details: They accept payment in cash at the door, but you can also pay online with Visa, Mastercard or AMEX. And you can schedule the delivery date/time through the website and send booze as a gift. Why not send a case of OV to that special someone and tell her you really love her?

DIAL-A-BOTTLE 1.866.797.2424

One-hour home delivery for beer and liquor, cigarettes, snacks, and pop. They boast that they are "the largest Beer and Liquor delivery service in Ontario," and with delivery available to 17 different cities and a toll-free number servicing them all, the claim seems legit.

Hours: Monday-Saturday until 9:30pm, Sunday until 4:30pm
Rates: An $8 flat delivery charge plus 10% of the total of your order.

Other details: The reliability of a one-number dispatch service seems reassuring, but I imagine it might also have its drawbacks. I called at 12:30 on a weekday and was placed on hold (albeit briefly) so I imagine that during peak times the wait to speak to someone might get lengthy. And when you're fresh out of Coors Light Iced Tea, the last thing you want to do is wait on hold.

FINEST BEER DELIVERY 416.406.2211

Offering liquor, beer, and wine delivery and claiming to be "the fastest delivery in town" at 30 minutes or less.

Hours: Monday-Thursday until 9:30pm, Friday-Saturday until 10pm, Sunday until 5pm
Rates: $8 flat fee and an additional $1.50 if you order more than three cases of beer or ten bottles of wine/liquor. No fee for extra stops and no extra charge for convenience store items.

Other details: Based on the fact they don't need a website or a fancy YellowPages ad, I'm going to assume that this is the best delivery service in the city ("I agree with that logic.").

HOME DELIVERY CANADA 1.855.446.6332

Province-wide delivery of LCBO and Beer Store products by phone or via an online form which requires that you set up an account.

Hours: The website requires that you first input your area code and the hours seem to adjust according to how late your local LCBO is open. Inputting my neighbourhood's postal code, which thankfully includes an LCBO with great, late hours, prompts the website to report delivery times as late as 11pm on Fridays. A random London, Ontario postal code, however, reports a 9:45 closure time Monday-Saturday.
Rates: $10.00 delivery charge, plus $1.50 extra if you require a stop at both the LCBO and Beer Store. Curiously, the dummy liquor order I did to test the form submission resulted in a $5.00 "LCBO surcharge" which isn't explained anywhere on the website. Cash, debit, or credit card at the door.

Other details: Given that the hours listed appear to be a reflection of the local LCBO's hours, I'd be wary of assuming the same hours apply to Beer Store items (and when I asked the representative who answered the phone, she noted "I do believe that is the case.") So you might want to make sure your local Beer Store is still open before you order that 12 pack of Sleeman Clear or you might be out of luck.

LIQUOR DELIVERY BOYS OF ONTARIO (LDBO) 416.741.5326

Delivering to Metro Toronto and some areas in Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Mississauga, LDBO requires you to create an account before you can order products from The Beer Store and LCBO in addition to "convenience items" like snacks, smokes, and fast food provided that it's available in the area.

Hours: Monday-Saturday until 9:30pm and Sunday until 4:30pm.
Rates: $8 flat delivery fee plus a mention of "overages" for more than 36 bottles of beer or three bottles of wine or liquor and for extra stops. There's an additional 15% fee if you want to use your credit card.

Other details: There seems to be a pretty large potential for mix-ups or wrong orders with this website. There is no product list here and instead there are just links to the LCBO and Beer Store websites for you to browse and an open text box for orders; allowing me, for example, to place an order for "A couple beers, some whiskey, and smokes." My confirmation email didn't raise any flags or include a price and, obviously, I wasn't required to provide any product details. I imagine, if it were a real order someone would have called to clarify, but if you're not careful, it seems like you could end up with a case of Bud Light Lime when what you really wanted was Bud Light Lime Mojito, and then your party would be ruined.

Please note that there are, naturally, a considerable amount of other beer and liquor delivery services available in the city. And, in order to write this, I called a large number of them, but most of the numbers listed seem to be associated with personal cell phones and several of my rate inquiries and questions about overages and hours received vague answers like, "It depends."

So while I'm sure many of those guys with cellphones are also extremely reliable (and are possibly willing to offer illegal after-hours delivery), I opted to list a handful of those that seemed to me to be more legitimate.

Photo by Alisdair Jones in the blogTO Flickr pool