I live in Delaware County, PA, which has 21 PA Wine & Spirits stores. It's an amazing coincidence that 21 is also our legal drinking age, and there also are 21 wines and spirits that I am interested in trying the rest of this year! Word right now is that the PLCB, an agency whose primary duty is to set and enforce PA liquor laws, will privatize their wine/spirits stores next year. So I would like to do a "road test" of all 21 of the stores in Delco. Here are my plans:

1. I will buy Bartyles & James sangria wine coolers at the Aston store. This is in a small strip center that was built in 1957 with an A&P as main anchor, which closed in 1982, to then serve as a Drug Emporium for over 20 years. After the latter closed in 2003, Big Lots moved in. Giant built a brand new store across the parking lot in 2005, marking the return of a supermarket to this shopping center after an over 20 year absence. Ironically, the first Giant in Delaware County opened in nearby Brookhaven in 1985, and is planning to relocate across the street by 2015.

2. I will buy Bacardi rum at the Boothwyn store, which sits inside a Pathmark that was built in 1992 as a Super Fresh. A Walmart is next door which was a Caldor from 1992 to 2000.

3. I will buy Bailey's Irish Creme at the Brookhaven store. While not in a shopping center, this store is very close to both a 1950s shopping center which once had a Food Fair/Pantry Pride supermarket, which now is a Save-A-Lot, and a 1960s shopping center which once had a Grant City as main anchor, which has been a Kmart since 1976, and an early ShopRite, which became a Pathmark in 1968.

4. I will buy Bols Blue Curacao at the Broomall store. This is in a big shopping center that opened in 1957, but the Wine & Spirits is from 1972 and was expanded in 2004, doubling its size. The expansion took up a former "Movies Unlimited" video store. An Acme is across the parking lot, which once was a Food Fair, then a Pantry Pride, then a ShopRite. In 1974, a Kmart was built back to back with what was then the Pantry Pride, which closed five years later, after a dramatic bankruptcy that was a huge surprise even to supermarket industry experts. A Wendy's opened in the Kmart parking lot in 1982. After a minor remodeling in 1997, Kmart closed this store in 2004 and Home Depot filled its space in 2005. A wholesale Wine & Spirits store is also in Broomall, and has been since 1964.

5. I will buy Bols Clear Orange at the Chester store. This opened in 1947 and has hardly changed since, but it since has gone from being full-service to being self-service.

6. I will buy Bombay Sapphire gin at the Drexel Hill store, which opened in 2005, replacing an older store on the opposite floor of the same building. When the old one was open, a Wine & Spirits was also open at the other end of Drexel Hill. The two older stores were each about half the size of the one new store. When the new store opened, it had a "JB Dawson's" sports bar for a neighbor, but a Chickie's & Pete's seafood restaurant has since replaced it. An Eckerd across the parking lot closed in 2000, ironically around the same time as the PLCB first proposed upgrades to their Drexel Hill stores, but while most former Eckerd stores were the perfect size for Wine & Spirits stores, this one was very small and too small. It became a Tuesday Morning in 2010.

7. I will buy Disaronno amaretto at the Eddystone store, which also opened in 2005 to replace an older store, this one being from 1962 and in a different city, Woodlyn. The Wine & Spirits here likely was searching for a new location for a long time, because the whole shopping center began to fail when Acme closed their store in it around 1977. It didn't help either that Jo-Ann Fabrics ended up closing their store here in 2002. The Wine & Spirits store could have moved to Eddystone in 2000, when Festival Foods opened a store there, but made a smart move by waiting for Festival Foods to close and be replaced by ShopRite. The supermarket here was originally planned to be a Genuardi's, but that chain cancelled their plans for this store when Safeway bought Genuardi's in 2000. Festival Foods was a chain based in Pittsburgh that had no other stores at all in Greater Philadelphia, and was the supermarket chain of last resort for this site, rushing to open here as the landlord scrambled to find a replacement for Genuardi's. So not surprisingly Festival Foods crashed and burned here, but served a valuable purpose by running the area's only supermarket until ShopRite was ready to move in.

8. I will buy Elmo Pio Chianti at the Glen Mills store. This store has a unique history because the original Wine & Spirits in Glen Mills was at a shopping center whose only other anchors were an AMC cinema and a Walgreens. When the family-owned Clemens supermarket chain, known for their stores in the three richer suburban counties of Philadelphia in the 1980s and 1990s, decided to experiment by opening their most upscale store in Glen Mills, with the FoodSource name, the Wine & Spirits moved to be at a site at the back of the FoodSource property. Unfortunately FoodSource closed in 2005, despite the Zagara's store before it having closed after only lasting two years, from 2000 to 2002. The closing of the Zagara's was also a result of Safeway buying Genuardi's, as Zagara's was an upscale division of Genuardi's that Safeway had no interest in maintaining. And the FoodSource concept was Clemens's answer to Genuardi's starting Zagara's. Both gourmet grocers each had three stores, in two states each, but while two Zagara's were in New Jersey and only this one was in Pennsylvania, FoodSource took a different approach: they had two stores in Pennsylvania and one in Delaware. When FoodSource shut down, the Wine & Spirits here had no choice but to close along with it, because there was no way for an accessible entrance/exit to the liquor store to be created without letting customers wander into the large, otherwise empty FoodSource. While Glen Mills was without a Wine & Spirits store for over a year, it ended up being a good decision to close this Wine & Spirits anyway, because while it was a better than average PLCB store for the time it opened, it eventually was replaced by a more upscale "Fine Wine & Good Spirits" store in a new Acme-anchored shopping center across the street. Ironically, Zagara's had sold wine and spirits on their own at both of their New Jersey stores, and Genuardi's added a detached liquor store to their regular Marlton store after the Zagara's division was closed.

9. I will buy Frangelico at the Havertown store. This one opened in 2005 and like the nearby Drexel Hill store, replaced two smaller stores, each about half the size of the new store. Both Havertown and Drexel Hill  each started out with a Wine & Spirits store in a downtown location, but these very old stores in both towns stayed open for many years after the company first transitioned into large shopping center formats.

10. I will buy Grand Marnier at the Holmes store. This one opened in 1974 and is in a very odd location, at the very back of a strip of stores that sits vertical to the street, with access to only the main road and no visibility or access from any other streets. An A&P store was the strip's anchor from its opening in 1957, but now only a Family Dollar and Goodwill store are in the complex except for the Wine & Spirits and offices.

11. I will buy Inglenook at the Lansdowne store. This one is from 1947, as is the Chester store. It's also a strange coincidence that both of these are across from a relatively new Rite Aid.

12. I will buy Jagermeister at the Media store. This one opened in 2005 to replace a very small store several blocks away which opened in 1955. While they both are in downtown locations, the older store only had metered parking and was on a street that cars have to share with trolleys. The new store has a small parking lot that gets claustrophobic, but provides for a safer system and is free. One downside to the new store though is that its visibility is poorer than at the old store. The company had to negotiate with the owner of a neighboring business, Carol's Auto Tags 4 U, to put a Wine & Spirits sign on the facade of Carol's Auto Tags 4 U. Also, the timing of the Wine & Spirits moving from their old Media store to their new Media store was unfortunate, because Trader Joe's opened a new store next to the old Wine & Spirits right after it moved away. If it had stayed put, the combination of neighbors here would have made the perfect one-stop grocery shopping opportunity. The old store is now a Hallmark, and was identical to the Lansdowne store which is still open. It's a shame the Wine & Spirits didn't move to the former Eckerd space in Media when they had the chance. The Eckerd closed in 2000 and was next to an Acme which was expanded and remodeled in 2003. A Wine & Spirits here could have opened into the Acme.

13. I will buy Kahlua at one of three Newtown Square stores. This one opened in 1978 and not unlike what happened in Media, it replaced an older store in a much more desirable location, but the move was justified because a larger store was desperately needed to meet demand, and there was no room for expansion. In this case, a new store was needed with the extra space required of a self-service store, as the original store from 1952 here had counter service, as did all the company's stores until 1969. So the Wine & Spirits here ended up being tucked in back of this shopping center that was then anchored by Acme and Eckerd, now Rite Aid. Ironically, Acme demolished the old Wine & Spirits here to expand their store in 1979, but would cross paths with the PLCB again, over 25 years later. More details down below...

14. I will buy Midori at the second of three Newtown Square stores. This one is inside the Acme mentioned above, but is at the opposite side of the store from the end where the expansion took place on the site of the original Wine & Spirits here. The 1978 store has mysteriously stayed open despite this new store inside the Acme. Timing of the new Wine & Spirits (which opened inside Acme in 2005) opening was also not so good here. Genuardi's was rumored to be expanding their nearby store into the former Walgreens next door, but this never happened. If it had, the Acme would likely have closed, creating the Glen Mills issue again. So keeping the 1978 store open would have made sense for this reason. But considering Acme here has survived, I think it would have made much more sense to mix old and new in Media instead of Newtown Square.

15. I will buy Seagram's Escapes (bottled cocktails) at the third of three Newtown Square stores. Guess what... this store is in the plaza formerly occupied by Genuardi's, which closed here in 2010, but is less than a mile from the Acme plaza with a long history of Wine & Spirits stores. Considering the size of Newtown Square, the company could have saved itself a lot of headache by taking the opening of their store next to the Genuardi's as an opportunity to start over in Newtown Square from scratch, and abandoning the Acme plaza altogether. So in other words, the one store that sits in the Genuardi's plaza would have been PLENTY for Newtown Square. However, once Genuardi's announced they weren't expanding this store after all, the Walgreens space was snatched up by Staples, who also requested the Wine & Spirits move to a new space two doors away, to what used to be an EB Games. Only a Huntington Learning Center is between the Staples (and specifically the old Wine & Spirits portion) and the current Wine & Spirits.

16. I will buy Southern Comfort eggnog at the Ridley Park store. This one is also from 1947, as with the Chester and Lansdowne stores, and is now sandwiched between a 7-Eleven which opened in the 1970s, and a Wells Fargo bank which was a Wachovia until the 2000s. Amazingly, none of these stores have much visibility at all, and are crammed in the middle of a mostly residential area that only is an attraction for businesses due to its proximity to a hospital which faces Chester Pike, a very busy street.

17. I will buy Starbucks Coffee Liqueur at the Springfield store. This one opened in 2005 to replace a 3,000 square foot store from 1954 in Springfield on one side of it, and a 6,000 square foot store in Upper Darby (but with a Clifton Heights mailing address) on the other side of it, on the Upper Darby side of a street where Springfield owns the other side.

18. I will buy Starbucks Cream Liqueur at the Barclay Square store in Upper Darby. This is in a shopping center that started in 1955 as only a Food Fair, but in 1976, a number of years after being renamed Pantry Pride, this supermarket had other stores added on next door, forming an L shape, including an Eckerd (now a Rite Aid) and a Wine & Spirits store, which still has its retro neon signs on the walls from 1976, and decor left over from when it was last remodeled in 1992.

19. I will buy Yellow Tail chardonnay, chilled, at the downtown Upper Darby store on 69th Street. This one is in a shopping district that has suffered much in the past year due to Sears closing their very old store there.

20. I will buy ouzo at the Villanova store. This one moved in 2006 from a very visible location very close to the street to a location tucked behind the old one, attached to a Fresh Grocer supermarket that only lasted six months before it closed. At least unlike with FoodSource in Glen Mills, this Wine & Spirits was built with preparations for when Fresh Grocer closed. The supermarket and liquor store here were sitting next to each other, both with equal visibility, unlike in Glen Mills where the presence of the Wine & Spirits was only known to people traveling down the street due to a Wine & Spirits sign above the FoodSource entrance.

21. I will buy sake at the Wayne store. This one opened in 1979 and is interesting due to it still having 1970s brick on the outside, and neon signs (just like the Barclay Square store) inside, along with early 1990s decor elements and street signage. It makes no sense that this store, which similar to the Holmes store is in a building vertical to the street, takes up the rearmost portion of the building, with a Baskin-Robbins taking up a much more desirable portion.