Presented by
It doesn’t matter where we are in the world, we always seem to find ourselves in situations that call for wine, and plenty of it. Hong Kong is no different, but it does tend to produce its own very specific set of “wine emergencies”, to coin a phrase. Here, we talk you through five of the most common and show you how best to avoid them.
1) You go to a new restaurant that doesn’t have its alcohol license yet
Rent is so obnoxiously high in Hong Kong (not sure if you’ve noticed) that it’s commonplace for restaurants to open before they have their booze license and allow customers to bring their own on the D-low. This is indeed awesome if you know in advance and can therefore plan your purchase. If caught by surprise, however, you could find yourself washing a super expensive steak down with a bottle of cheap plonk from a popular convenience store whose name we shan’t mention. Wine emergency? We think so.
2) You run out of alcohol at party, and this just ain’t your cheap plonk kinda crowd
Yep, there we go again with the cheap plonk slamming. What can we say? Once burned… It’s definitely a wine emergency when you’re hosting a classy party and you run out of anything remotely drinkable. We’ve all been there, and cracking open that bottle with the snake in it that you were given as a funny present is no way to make (or keep) friends.
3) You’re at a beach BBQ or a picnic in the park, and if you drink any more warm beer, you might DIE!
Okay, so maybe we’re being a tad melodramatic, but actually… not at all. Nothing ruins a nice al fresco eating event more than warm beverages that aren’t supposed to be warm. We dare say a crisply chilled white wine is the most suited alcohol for a sophisticated Hong Kong beach barbecue or park picnic, but unless you’re going to pick a spot right outside the shop, by the time you get to your chosen location, you might as well have bought some pasta to go with your hot white wine sauce.
4) You’re rushing to make a junk and haven’t organised any alcohol
Photo: Hanumann via Flickr
Fluoro swimsuit: check! Sunglasses you don’t mind tossing to the bottom of the sea: check! Unicorn floatie: check! Booze…. NOOOOO! You have a BYOB junk today and realise only too late that you totally forgot about the B. Your vanity won’t let you drink beer (bloated much?) and your liver won’t let you drink spirits (spewing much?), but we all know what kind of wine you’ll get in the convenience shops on the piers. Hint: It begins with “C” and ends with “heap plonk”.
5) You’ve just landed the biggest client of your career but there’s nothing but soya milk in the office fridge
We feel your pain. Our office fridge is full of soya milk too, and there’s literally nothing we want to drink less when we’re celebrating – unless we’re celebrating a disappointing breakfast. You could of course go to the supermarket and pick out a nice bottle of bubbly, but it’s 5:30pm and the queues will be as long as a cross fit session feels with a hangover. Plus, you just know there’ll be nothing even remotely decent chilled.
The remedy
Just like in Grey’s Anatomy, for every emergency, there is a highly skilled (and implausibly good looking) team to make everything okay again. In the case of a Hong Kong wine emergency, that team is BottlesXO, who will deliver great quality, highly affordable European wine to you anywhere in Hong Kong, at any time between 12 noon and midnight, within an hour! What’s more, your bottle will arrive at the perfect drinking temperature. No more white wine soup for you!
There are even special packages on the BottlesXO app to help you choose your wines for these summer occasions:
The Junk Package – a spread of red, white, rosé and sparkling wines for your next boozy boat trip
The Beach Package – Rosé and Prosecco for a sophisticated day on the sand
The BBQ Package – A selection of four bottles of red and white to accompany your meat feast
To make use of these life-saver services simply download the app, pick a package or select individual bottles from a range of hand-selected ethical and affordable wines, choose to pay online or by cash on delivery, and sit back and watch your remedy getting closer on GPS.
Extra special CocoBonus: First time users can enjoy a HKD50 discount until Aug. 31 by adding promo code BXO999 at checkout.
