The Flaviar Whiskey Club Review 2023: A Shot of Truth

Overview

The Flaviar Whiskey Club is a whiskey delivery service at the top of its game offering a wide variety of whiskeys ranging from inexpensive beginners’ brands to top-end brands for the expert connoisseur.

Pros

• Wide selection of spirit types (gin, bourbon, etc…)

• Wide selection of whiskey prices (from economy to connoisseur)

• Gifting options

Cons

• A few minor Customer Service issues

• Services only 14 of the 50 U.S. states

Flaviar Whiskey Club Whiskey Selection

The Flaviar Whiskey Club is a popular web destination for lovers of not only Whiskey but other Spirits, too. And it’s good for connoisseurs and newbies alike. Its offerings run the gamut from Irish Whiskey to American Whiskey, from Gin to Brandy, and pretty much everything else in between.

The store offers hundreds of options for its many different Spirit types. For example, Irish Whiskey alone has 73 different bottles. And that’s just one of the multitude of different types of Spirits typically available.

Don’t worry though. Navigating through the list is relatively easy. Flaviar provides a well-designed, efficient series of filters that lets you narrow down your selection with great rapidity. You can filter based on the type of Spirit, brand, flavor, price, age, etc…

Flaviar also provides a listing of popular Spirit Originals like Son of a Peat, Corn Trooper, Frérot, HaiBall, Deer, Bear & Moose, Hercules Mulligan, Shakmat, Larga Vida, Flaviar Bar, Infinity Bottle, and Barrel Picks.

Flaviar offers what the company calls “Tasting Boxes” which consist of three premium curated 1.7oz Spirit samples (each being sufficient for two people to enjoy), tasting notes, instructions, background information on the distillery and Spirit in question, and a branded designer coaster.

This allows you to sample three different Spirits in one order. It also provides you with all the information you might need to fully explore the intricacies and details of the respective drinks. You’ll learn lesser-known facts about the drinks and other information to impress your friends and associates.

Top Flaviar Whiskey Club Whiskeys

When it comes to Whiskey there are legendary Spirits out there. But the more stellar the drink, the heftier the price tag. Here are three hefty labels that Whiskey connoisseurs truly love.

Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old 2021 is the first blockbuster I’ll touch on here. It’s known for a potent flavor interspersed with powerful notes of worn leather, dark cocoa, as well as dry, tannic oak. And it comes in at a price of $5,999.99! Too rich for my blood, but it’s got the reputation to earn it.

Next up is the Macallan 30-Year-Old Sherry Oak – another blockbuster. It’s another stellar brew. It comes from the Sherry Oak range (which is basically a range of single malt whiskies). These spirits are matured in sherry seasoned oak casks that are carefully selected for the complexity and richness they provide.

This smooth concoction has a rich finish and can cost as much as $8,999.99. It’s offered at Flaviar for a “mere” $7,776.99.

The last of the titans that I’ll discuss is Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old 2019. Another vintage from Pappy Van Winkle. Like the 2021, the 2019 boasts rich flavors of dark cocoa, worn leather, and dry, tannic oak. It’ll be an experience like no other. It comes in at $6,199.99.

Now that I’ve touched on some classic whiskey legends, let’s take a look at some of the highlights Flaviar has to offer. As I noted, Flaviar offers the Macallan listed above, but obviously, it’s so high-end that a lot of people just won’t be able to afford it. So, we’ll skip down to Flaviar’s highest ranked. Such brands may still be a little too expensive depending upon your income, but they aren’t so pricey you’ll have to choose between the whiskey and your car!

So, here are the top three rated brands on Flaviar:

The Kyro Dark Gin originates from Finland. A group of friends, while hanging out in a sauna, decided to start a distillery. They opened up in an old dairy where they worked on their maturing whiskey. In the meantime, they turned their focus to gin and, in time, gave us this remarkable concoction.

This remarkable gin smells like meadows and citrus orange. It tastes of honey, vanilla, oak, and orange zest. And it comes in at $37.99 … a modest price that most whiskey buffs can afford.

Hotel Tango Bourbon is the brainchild of American military veteran Travis Barnes and his wife Hilary. Together, they’ve started a serious Whiskey company that, with some help from Master Distiller Bob Yates has blossomed into a great success.

Hotel Tango Bourbon smells of caramel and rye spice, and it incorporates such tastes as spicy pepper, other baking spices, toffee, oak, and orange. It comes in at $42.99. Again, quite affordable.

Next up is the Macallan: A Night on Earth: In Scotland. As a Macallan, it’s a bit pricey for lesser mortals like me. It comes in at $998.99. But it’s a Macallan. They’ve been making whiskey since 1824, so I think they’ve earned the mantle of a Whiskey Titan.

A Night on Earth: In Scotland has a sweet, rich aroma of butter, vanilla, baking biscuits, baked apple, plum, and almond. Its soft and velvety taste incorporates flavors of vanilla, shortbread, dried oranges, cinnamon, figs, and lightly-toasted marshmallows.

Sending A Flaviar Whiskey Club Box As a Gift

It’s not difficult to send a Flaviar Whiskey Club Box as a gift to a friend or associate. It starts with your purchase of a gift card that’s either in the form of an electronic card that’s sent via email pretty much instantly or a physical card that may take up to five days or so to work its way through the snail mail.

When your friend receives the card – which is good for two products (Standard), four products, (Premium), or eight products (All Access) over the course of a year – it comes with a secret activation code to be used on the Flaviar website. Then, they tailor the membership as they see fit, selecting either Tasting Boxes or singular bottles as they desire.

All packages are shipped by courier. The package comes in an elegantly designed box (that actually won the Red Dot designer award in 2017).

Shipped packages contain either a Tasting Box or a bottle of whiskey. A Tasting Box consists of three 1.7 oz samples (large enough for two people) of premium curated whiskey, as well as a branded designer coaster and some tasting notes.

Although you can order a single bottle or Tasting Box as a one-off gift, the gift card comes with a year-long membership which includes a number of special benefits.

These benefits include the whiskey products that come with each plan, free shipping for orders >$60, free distillery tours, free webinars and online events, access to original bottlings by Flaviar, online courses about Spirits, a referral program, and easy cancellation when desired.

Here’s a quick summary of Flaviar Whiskey Club’s pricing and who it’s best for:

Flaviar Whiskey Club Membership

The Flaviar Whiskey Club offers several options to subscribe to its service. At the base of each option is the concept of a Tasting Experience Ticket. A single Tasting Experience Ticket provides you with one product. A product can be either a single Tasting Box (which consists of three 1.7 oz samples of liquor) or a single bottle of liquor.

From there, you have three options. You can purchase a subscription that comes with one Tasting Experience Ticket, four Tasting Experience Tickets, or eight Tasting Experience Tickets.

However, you should know that the single Tasting Experience Ticket is renewed every month. The four and eight Tasting Experience Tickets are renewed every year. So, over the course of a year, the single Tasting Experience Ticket will provide you with 12 products, assuming you purchase/renew the Tasting Experience Ticket 12 times.

In contrast, over the course of a year, the four and eight Tasting Experience Tickets will only provide you with four or eight products respectively. But you pay for the whole lot in one shot.

It’s also worth pointing out that every product also comes with a guided tasting session under the tutelage of an industry expert. Such sessions are delivered to your home via the Internet at a time of your choosing.

Once you’ve selected your number of tickets, you can then, if you so desire, upgrade to a Primo Plan. The Primo Plan doesn’t alter your number of tickets but it does provide the following benefits: free shipping, online shop discounts, access to Flaviar original bottlings, you’re allowed entry into the Vault, free tickets to events, and distilleries, and more perks at Flaviar embassies.

The Primo Plan costs a little bit more, but as you can see, it offers quite a lot.

Signing up for a subscription, whichever type you choose, is really quite easy. Just follow these steps.

1. Go to Flaviar.com

2. Click Subscribe Now

3. Scroll down the page and click Start Your Plan (1/4)

4. Choose your plan size (1,4, or 8 tickets)

5. Upgrade your plan to Primo, if desired

6. Join the free community

7. And checkout.

Although there’s no onboarding quiz to automatically tailor your shipments to your tastes and such (Flaviar lets you have that fun yourself), there are plenty of extras to embellish your order for you.

Similarly, there’s no starter box specifically designed as such, but the minimum order size is for a one-ticket subscription which translates into a single bottle or three 1.7 oz samples of different spirits. So, the sample box will suit that purpose quite admirably. Alternatively, you can order a one-off bottle to fit that same bill.

Orders are received either once a month for a one-ticket plan or spread out over the course of a year for a four or eight-ticket plan.

Flaviar Whiskey Club Prices

Whiskey at the Flaviar Whiskey Club is competitively priced. It starts at $10.00 per bottle. At the time of this writing, subscription plans are as follows: $42 for one ticket (plus $5 for Primo), $206 for four tickets (plus $50 for Primo), and $330 for eight tickets (plus $50 for Primo). As you can see, adding on a Primo membership costs a little bit more.

Of course, if you don’t want to commit to a long subscription or even a renewing monthly subscription there are plenty of options that can be purchased a la carte. Similarly, if you just want to gift a person a single bottle or Tasting Box, that’s just as easy to do.

The only drawback of ordering a la carte is that a bottle or Tasting Box purchased in such a fashion doesn’t come with gift notes or gift receipts.

Subscriptions renew automatically. Delivery fees are $9 for Standard, Premium, and All Access plans, unless you opt to upgrade to Primo. In which case, the delivery fees are waived and a monthly or yearly Primo charge is added ($5, $50, or $ 50 respectively).

The Flaviar Whiskey Club also has an online shop in which you can purchase a variety of extras. At the time of this writing, these extras range from actual accessories like glasses and coasters to entirely promotional items like t-shirts and towels.

The prices for such tend to be slightly higher than in other stores and places online. But that’s to be expected. Flaviar is a smaller specialized shop. Naturally, it can charge a premium for the products in its niche.

Delivery

The vendors Flaviar uses can usually deliver most orders within five business days or less. Of course, this may be influenced by the delivery address as well as stock levels of the respective items.

To assist, Flaviar always provides a tracking link for your order that becomes active once an order ships. The link comes with an estimated delivery time. However, be aware that if you order more than one item, each item may sometimes be shipped separately.

If you wish to ship an item to a neighbor or some other safe location other than your home address, you may do so. You can either contact the courier (FedEx, UPS, etc…) when you get your tracking number or, you can contact Flaviar beforehand and make arrangements in advance.

As stated above, Flaviar ships its orders by courier in an elegantly designed box – a box that actually won the Red Dot designer award in 2017. It’s designed with the thought of keeping your spirits safe and undisturbed in mind.

As far as recycling and the environment are concerned, such issues are dealt with in an order-by-order case. Flaviar sells products from many different vendors. Often, those vendors use recycled materials, but Flaviar is really out of that loop.

Flaviar Whiskey Club Delivery Locations

Flaviar is still growing. As of yet, it doesn’t span the entire U.S. However, it can deliver to the following states: CA, CT, DC, FL, IL, KY, MN, NE, NY, ND, NJ, NH, TX, and WA. It can’t deliver to Canada, Guam, or Puerto Rico. Nor is it possible to deliver to APO/FPO/DPO (AE/AP/AA) addresses, courier depots, or forwarding services.

However, Flaviar does deliver to all countries in the European Union (EU) and the UK. Furthermore, since it’s constantly expanding its business, other countries may be added to this list as time progresses. To find out if Flaviar is currently delivering to your country feel free to contact the company.

Customer Service

Generally speaking, the customer service at Flaviar was adequate. It didn’t do anything terribly wrong, but neither was it exceptional to the point of drawing extra attention to itself. I have a couple of complaints, but they’re all minor and easy to fix.

My main issue is with the FAQ layout. The FAQ page is easy to find and answers about 17 questions. But, as I went around the site, I often found an FAQ section at the bottom of a page with new questions that weren't on the main FAQ page.

That can make it difficult to find an answer to a question you know is out there, but you’re not sure where. You just stumble from page to page, scanning the FAQ, and hoping to get lucky. I far prefer to deal with a single FAQ page that has ALL the FAQ in one easy-to-reference place.

After inquiring, Customer Service sent me the following link: https://help-club.flaviar.com/. It contains a much more extensive collection of FAQ, but it may not be accessible to non-members.

My second complaint is the location of the Chat Box. I found it on the Gift Membership page. I mean, I was certainly glad to find it as Chat Boxes are usually one of my favorite ways to communicate with a site, but I prefer that they be located in a more obvious place – like on a help page, with the FAQ, or its own designated page. Being forced to look all over for it was annoying.

My last complaint concerns the tardiness of the response I got from an email I sent. Here’s the email:

I expected a response within 24 hours. It was a little late (by a couple of days). In any event, here is the company’s response:

Although the company’s answers were certainly thorough enough, I just wish I’d gotten the response sooner. I mean … two, nearly three days? That’s a bit much. Still, that’s not difficult to fix.

How to Cancel Flaviar Whiskey Club

Canceling your subscription to Flaviar Whiskey Club isn’t overly difficult. Just follow this three-step process:

1. Log in to your account

1. Go to flaviar.com and click Log In in the upper right corner.

2. Open your settings

1. Navigate to the Membership page.

3. Select Unsubscribe

1. Unsubscribe and sign out.

If you run into any problems or have any issues you can contact the Membership team at support@flaviar.com. You can also unsubscribe by mail and/or email if necessary. As noted on the site, if you cancel within three days of becoming a member, you’re entitled to a full refund minus any benefits you used during that period.

After the three-day grace period, the cancellation will simply prevent your Membership from renewing at the end of the prepaid period. Finally, be aware that canceling by email may take up to five business days. And canceling by snail mail may take a trifle longer.

Flaviar Whiskey Club vs. Other Liquor Delivery Services

The chart below gives some statistics for comparison between the Flaviar Whiskey Club and three other Liquor Delivery Services. Of the three competitors, Caskers has the least expensive option available at $12.99. However, Flaviar offers Tanduay Asian Rum Gold for only $10.99. So, it wins that head-to-head.

Similarly, Tasters’ Club and Caskers both offer eight types of liquor compared to six for Saloon Box. Yet, again, Flaviar takes the lead with twelve different types. So, all in all, Flaviar holds up pretty well to some stiff competition.

The Bottom Line

As the name suggests, The Flaviar Whiskey Club provides easy on-line access to Whiskey of a variety of types. As a consumer, you have a choice between purchasing a single one-off item or subscribing to a larger selection. Either way, the company has you covered.

Generally speaking, I found that the positives of the Flaviar service far outweighed the bad. Really, the only negatives were a few minor, easily correctable issues with the Customer Service. Basically, the company merely needs to add a few more FAQs on the FAQ page and be a little more speedy in email replies. That’s it.

So, if you’re taking an interest in becoming a serious whiskey connoisseur, whether you’re a newbie or an experienced pro, the Whiskey Flaviar Club may be the perfect site for you.

FAQ 

Is Flaviar membership worth it?

If you’re interested in whiskey, either to just enjoy on its own or as a means of developing your art of liquor tasting, I think a Flaviar membership may be well worth your while. The company has a pretty extensive collection of whiskeys covering a broad range of brands and types, and it has a number of other additional features and extras that really make membership something to be prized.

How does Flaviar membership work?

Basically, you purchase one, four, or eight Tasting Experience Tickets. If you purchase one ticket, you can renew it each and every month. If you purchase four or eight tickets, you renew at the end of the year. Not too difficult, eh?

How much does the Flaviar Whiskey Club cost?

A basic membership costs $42, $156, or $280 depending upon how many Tasting Experience Tickets you purchase. Additional features and upgrades may alter that price. Individual whiskey bottles range in price from approximately $10.00 a bottle.