What are bottle shops and drive-through bottle shops in Australia?

A bottle shop in Australia is a store that specialises in selling alcohol, such as BWS, Dan Murphy’s, Thirsty Camel or Liquorland. Bottle shop means something close to liquor store or off-licence, and some are drive-through bottle shops. Due to licencing laws, booze can’t usually be bought direct from the supermarket.

Brits and Australians can often be divided by the same language, and Australia uses several terms that are not commonly known in the UK. These include CBD, parma, goon, Manchester and Poms.

But one vital term that most British holidaymakers are probably going to want to know about is “bottle shop”. Or, as Australians regularly reduce it to, “bottle-o”.

What is a bottle shop in Australia?

The meaning of bottle shop in Australia is, roughly, what an off-licence is in the United Kingdom, or a liquor store is in the United States. It’s not an exact match but, importantly, the purpose is the same. A bottle shop in Australia is where you go to buy alcoholic drinks. If you’re going to the BWS bottle shop (or Dan Murphy’s, Thirsty Camel, Liquorland etc), you’re probably thirsty.

Now, in the UK, this booze shopping is usually done in supermarkets. But in Australia, there are different licencing laws. They vary slightly from state to state, but essentially, alcoholic drinks have to be sold in a separate shop.

Bottle shop or supermarket?

In most cases, this is essentially just a sectioned-off area of the supermarket. You pay for your beer or wine in Liquorland rather than Coles, but Coles neatly envelopes Liquorland. In other instances, the bottle shop is right next to the supermarket, and owned by the same parent company.

Something similar applies to pubs. Many have a bottle shop attached to them, or act under the pretence that take-away drinks sold from a special part of the bar are a separate operation.

Drive-through bottle shops in Australia

Some of these bottle shops are enormous, as are some of the standalone bottle shops that cater to the drive-through market.

Ah yes. The drive-through bottle shop. Yes, that is a real thing. Giant stores have set up to cater to people who have run out of alcohol and want to get some more. Welcome to Australia…

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