My Carmel friends have so many options for liquor stores. I feel like they are reviewing a new place every week. Lucky ducks. But, alas, we live on the east side, so we are blessed with Elite Beverages. I am thankful for Elite. Sitting here in my home without pulling up Google Maps, I can't think of another liquor store around me. The closest one I would visit would have to be Chilly's in Greenfield, but I don't want a 30 minute round trip and Elite is easy to hit on my way home. So, while I am not always impressed with Elite, I am thankful it is near by my place of residence. The store has a decent selection. Not great. Not bad. It's just a smaller store. They pack a lot in (read: the aisles are tight), but sometimes I just can't find what I am looking for. The attendants are kind, but I wouldn't say overly helpful. I am sure they would help if I ask, though. They just do their thing behind the counter. My only real gripe is the store layout. The dedicated spirit aisles are nice (tequila, rum, vodka) and I actually didn't realize how large their whiskey and bourbon selection was, so that's a positive. No, my gripe is with the wine. It is spread out all over the place. Whites here, Indiana wines there. They have a nice wooden wine rack, but it is literally where people line up to pay, so you feel like you are in everyone's way or they are staring at you. It the wine was just on the other side of the room, I'd be tempted to bump this up to 4 stars. I can't help but wonder: Is the liquor store supposed to be elite or their products? Like, "We are Elite. We offer beverages." Or, "We are a store. We sell elite beverages"? I am guessing the beverages. Maybe with 3 stars they should consider a name change. I did learn something important today: listen to people who know what they are talking about. I normally don't think about wine pairings. I like dry red so that is what I drink. Steak: dry red. Chicken: dry red. Pasta: dry red. But someone gave me a piece of advice I decided to heed. For dinner, I had bagged caesar salad. I do love a good caesar salad! Is bagged salad good? Sometimes. It was easy and sounded good. Well, the advice was to have a nice, crisp fruity Riesling with a caesar salad. Would that do the trick? Would that elevate this bagged caesar to gourmet status? Well, dang it if it didn't work. The riesling made the salad sing to my taste buds. Every bite was brisk and refreshing. Listen to people who are in the know and may know more than you. Words to live by, in my book! read more

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30 pk Busch light - none cold in cooler only regular marked at $27 okay that's high but it's cold. Warm Busch light on wall outside cooler. With huge banner advertising 30 pk warm $24.99. Cashier rang up and it was $29. I pointed to the banner and said that is the price marked for the cold 30 pk. She said prices just went up. Take the banner down then. Walmart is $19 for the same thing. $10 bucks more and it's not even cold? read more

Elite Beverages, right? Well, they are now a very convenient option for me, and the staff has been friendly and helpful! They are willing to do searches and contact me once the item I'm looking for comes in. This store has a really nice and large selection of vodkas ranging from low end to fancy flavors to a few higher end vodkas. I opted for a mid range large bottle that's 100 proof. Since I mix it with sweet beverages I am not that picky about my vodka:) However, I was looking instead for our favorite scotches ... Grant's. Unfortunately, they don't carry Grant's, but they do have Famous Grouse which is really a close second. I'm not even going to say i've had a lot of different kinds of scotch whiskey, but I have had enough to have an opinion now. Their prices on most essential beverages are competitive. read more

They actually had what I was looking for. And that's always a good sign for a proper liquor store. They had a huge selection inside. Only downside was maybe the guy at the counter could've been friendlier, since we were the only females inside. Liked that the receipt said, "Thanks for having good taste." read more

Stopped at this location on the way to a card party and was pleasantly surprised at the selection. The were several options of cold beer in the coolers as well as many choices for hard liquor. The prices were average, and they provided a convenient stop for the Cumberland area. read more

In a world known as the far east side, there are few choices for package liquors. Sure you could go to the Mejier or Marsh just up the street. You could drive to one of the more ghetto liquor stores. You could do a lot of things to be honest. What you should do, is go to Elite Beverages #2. Don't let the #2 fool you. Just because it's smaller than the Lawrence location and has less selection (due to the store size, try to keep up), doesn't mean it lacks in selection. The Meijer up the street has a pretty robust selection of beer, wine, and booze. It also has a pretty robust selection of slow people with carts and fat kids stuffing as many bags of snacky yum-yums into their cart as they can while their mom decides if she should get the white bread, or the extra white bread. Elite beverages is a liquor store. They won't judge you if you buy a case of mike's hard lemonade....well, they might, but they'll still smile as they take your money. It's a no nonsense, get in and out quickly liquor store. What more could you ask for? read more

This is the closest liquor store to my house. That might have bumped this up a star. The employees in here are always really friendly. The last time I was in here I was getting ingredients for a recipe that called specifically for rye bourbon. I didn't know what the difference between a rye and a regular bourbon were, but the very nice lady working had a book that explains all the different types of liquor and she was able to look it up for me on the spot (for the record, it's the grain content - rye has, you guessed it, more rye than corn). They could have a better beer selection, but I can always find something good here. Decent wine selection, and very good liquor selection. read more

I stopped by here on my way home from Meijer because it looks big from the road....Too big for this neighborhood, I thought. It's a decent little place that is fairly clean and has your typical liquor store clientele after dark. Why do I always feel like the people working in these places drink a bottle of Jack every night after they clock out? The good: hard alcohol selection - it's abundant. The bad: beer selection. Unless you like Macros or Sun King. They basically have the exact same selection as Meijer plus Sun King and a couple varieties of Founders. The usual stuff you can find anywhere. For a much better selection of beer on the east-southeast side, check out the place next to McDonald's on Brookville just east of 465. They don't seem to be on Yelp yet. I will rectify that situation. read more

Awesome place, good location. Employees card because it's the damn law, let them do their job. Quit complaining.

A very expensive mistake to shop there! They put 12 bottles in a paper bag and they all broke because the bag busted! When I called to complain the guy says "too bad for you", there is no way we can help you with that. Their mistake cost me a bundle! Bad business and very RUDE! Will not buy there again! We will go out of our way to shop elsewhere. read more

Can't recommend a place that has a policy of carding everyone. I'm 62 and look every day of it. White hair, wrinkles included. It's not a state law and no one could reasonably look at me and think I was under 40. I like to shop at local businesses, but I don't reward laziness-looks like Big Red Liquors from now on. read more