Kokoman Fine Wines & Liquor

Look, I know what you’re thinking, because I thought that too: «this place has ‘fine’ anything?» Appearances are very deceptive, my friend. Step inside and find the most amazing selection of craft beers, exotic whiskeys, and my personal fav, Black Maple Hills bourbon. I make a point of stopping here whenever I’m in Santa Fe, because as great as my local places in Albuquerque are, they just don’t have the same breadth. If you’re looking for that special bottle of booze, this is your place. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

My parents live in Abiquiu, and Abuelita’s house is in Velarde, so it’s safe to say that we stop at Kokoman almost every time that we make the drive up to beautiful northern New Mexico. ADVICE TO NEWBIES: Wait until the exit off of Hwy 84 that is right in front of Kokoman to get to there. The owners of QB’s seem to have purposely created road blocks along the frontage road to prevent you from going there… and instead direct you to their store if you exit too early. QBs does NOT have HALF the wine selection (or quality) that Kokoman’s has… or beer selection… or tequila selection… the list goes on. This place has been around forever and I hope that they will always be there!

Friendly service and hands down one of the best beer selections in Northern NM!

This liquor store is fantastic! I definitely think the other five star reviews are right on. My husband and I are craft beer lovers and when we go out of state we like to shop for craft beers that we cannot buy at home. Kokoman is about 15 minutes north of Santa Fe so it is convenient.
Upon arriving it looks like a hole in the wall, but they have a fantastic selection of craft beers including several special releases. They have an extensive wine department too. On our last visit, they had a wine tasting set up and offered free barbecue to go along with the wines! So we sampled eight wines along with potato salad, brisket, and smoked sausages. I have never experienced something like that at a liquor store; it is obvious that they are customer service oriented and want to give their customers a great experience.
Their staff is always very friendly and helpful and they do a good job at keeping the checkout line small. Their prices are reasonable and competitive as well. For example, a six pack of craft beer I wanted was $ 2 less here than at two other liquor stores in Santa Fe.
Definitely check them out if you are in the area and are looking for something special.

My 400^th review. How fitting that it would be beer related.
I remember stopping in here as a kid as this was a go-​to spot for my dad on our way from Santa Fe to our home in the little town of Medanales.
I finally got the chance to go in this weekend on a trip to Taos and I was quite surprised by what I found. The selection in here is crazy. I’m a craft beer lover so that’s what I made a beeline for but I did happen to notice a bottle of Deanston Whisky as I walked towards the beer.
First of all, I haven’t seen Deanston anywhere in New Mexico and it is a great liquor. Total Wine, Jubilation, Kelly’s, none have had this stuff. So that was impressive.
As for the beer, quite a damn selection. Hard to find craft beer, rare bottles, and oh yeah, lots of beers way past their best by date. And I mean a lot of bottles. I saw a bottle of some IPA that was to be best by JANUARY 2012! That’s insane. Some poor unsuspecting customer is going to come in and pay regular price for that only to discover it’s hopless and should have been consumed ages ago. This rubbed me wrong.
Still, there were other bottles that technically have just been cellared and are some major finds. I saw a bunch of bottles of Stone Old Guardian from 2010 and was almost tempted to buy them. I refrained only because I don’t know if barleywines can age for that long or not. I’ll do some homework and if they can, I’ll go way out of my way to drive up here and buy these and some other gems.
Just to give you a sense of things, I saw Samuel Smiths, Nogne, Mikkeller, BrewDog, Stone, Rogue, so many different craft beers I wanted to pee myself. The German and Belgium selection was quite good as well.
Overall, a great store with my only concern being the expired beers that really should not be on sale. So check your dates!!!
Oh, and as far as prices, things seemed pretty much on par with what you’d get in Jubilation in Albuquerque.

Visited here during a vacation in Santa Fe. Kokomo’s is by far, the 2^nd best overall wine and specialty liquor store that I have ever seen on the west Coast. It masks as an old gas station building until you enter it and then! Blows Santa Fe’s Casa Sena and Susan’s out of the water. We bought Opus One here and even a Rancho Sisquoc and a Foxen and a couple of nebbiolos, barberas. etc. Fine wines are stored properly and the room is cool and pleasant! The owner knows his stuff. No snobbery, just information and brains. Their tastings on Saturday are REAL tastings with good wines, not the crappy little teaspoon paper cups crap jug wine that you get at Susans «wine tastings» (where wines are not stored properly (on racks in the open air temp). Ask the Kokomo owner or his assistant sommelier to take you to their two elite cellars for their really good wine. One is upstairs. But don’t waste their time in those rooms unless you are seriously interested in good wine and Champagnes and ports. They were friendly and polite, unlike Susans and unlike the phony snobbery and rudeness at Casa Sena where a few of the employees make mincemeat out of wealthy wine-​know nothing individuals. Kokomo’s is like bringing all wine countries right to your doorstep. Their scotch, whiskey, vodka and other selections are unbelievable. The only store that beats them is Hi-​Time Wine Cellars in So. CA (they have cigar humidors, fine cheeses, liquor, and an underground cellar with great wine events). OK, Kokomo — thank God you took a chance on Santa Fe!!! I hope you appreciate my rank honesty. I tell it like it is! Who has time for BS.

Insanely good liquor store. They have some pretty obscure things — small batch wines from Santa Barbara, Paddy’s Irish Whiskey, and more beers than you could count. Awesome and worth going out of the way for. They do free wine tastings on weekends too.

This is the best liquor store in New Mexico in terms of selection, to my knowledge; and also likely has the best selection of wine. It certainly does not look impressive from the outside, in a sort of warehouse looking structure. Often the board out front reads «Don’t take checks from [Mr or Mrs can’t show their face in public again]. The wine part has a whole selection devoted just to wines of Portugal. (I don’t mean just port, I mean wine) That is a level of specificity one does not see often. In the liquor store you will find all kinds of exotic stuff, such as Haitian rum or czech liqueur, of course due to the fact that these things probably can’t be found anywhere else in the state, a premium price is charged for some of these items. There is also a pretty decent beer selection, a bunch of Belgian beers for example. But the liquor and wine selections are what really make this place stand out.

It’s the strangest thing, completely consistent with Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico in general, but the best wine store for miles around is actually in a big old dumpy building off the highway in Pojoaque, NM and it’s called Kokoman Fine Wines. Yes, it’s a liquor store, but half the building is dedicated to one of the biggest and most comprehensive wine inventories I’ve seen, even in San Francisco and other big cities. I just walked out with a case of wine: 2 bottles each of 2007 Dog Point and Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, of 2001 Finca El Puig Priorat and 2001 Baron de Ley Reserva from Spain; of 2004 Quinto do Crasto Douro from Portgual; and 2003 Château Coufran Haut Medoc from France. Quite a haul for the high desert 10 miles outside of Santa Fe!