On-demand alcohol delivery in Singapore - how much do the 7 fastest services cost?

On-demand alcohol delivery in Singapore - how much do the 7 fastest services cost?

If you stupidly volunteered to be part of the office Christmas party exco, don’t berate yourself too much.

These days, party planners have it easy. Even if you grossly underestimated your co-workers’ demand for Tiger beer, it is now absolutely possible to get alcohol delivered to the party in as little as 15 minutes.

Thanks to technology and furious competition among food delivery apps and alcohol delivery services, the lead time for express alcohol delivery in Singapore has whittled down to less than 1 hour.

And you don’t have to pay a premium for this express service either.

Some food delivery services even do lightning-quick alcohol deliveries for free!

ALCOHOL DELIVERY IN SINGAPORE: 7 FASTEST DELIVERY SERVICES

Alcohol delivery service Delivery fee Lead time Delivery time
Foodpanda Free (min. spend $10) 15 to 45 min Store hours
Deliveroo $3.99 to $4.49 15 to 45 min Store hours
GrabFood $3 to $5.81 30 to 45 min Store hours
Prime Liquor Free (min. spend $100) 45 min 6pm to 4am
Alcohol Delivery Free (min. spend $50) 1 hour 12pm to 3am
Mabuk Monkey  Free (min. spend $50) 1 hour 6pm to 12am, except Mon
Amazon Prime Now Free (min. spend $40) 2 hours 6am to 12am

It’s a mad world.

1. FOODPANDA ALCOHOL DELIVERY (FREE & FAST DELIVERY)

Among the 3 big food delivery apps in Singapore, Foodpanda’s alcohol delivery service is definitely the most impressive.

First, it’s very easy to find: Just tap on “Shops” instead of the usual “Restaurants”.

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What happens is that a Foodpanda rider simply pops down to the nearby minimart or liquor store and picks it up for you, and in most cases you get free delivery as long as you order at least $10 of stuff.

Admittedly, the selection is a bit limited to convenience store drinks (i.e., beer).

For my location, the best deal I found was a 6-pack of Sapporo from Hao Mart for $16.60. That’s even cheaper than the 6-pack of Tiger from TigerNow ($19.50). Hey, I’ll take it.

There happens to be a Wine Connection within range for me so I could also find $6/bottle craft beers and $26 wines. But just like with normal food delivery, the alcohol options greatly depend on what’s nearby.

2. DELIVEROO ALCOHOL DELIVERY ($3.99 TO $4.49 MORE WINE OPTIONS)

Like Foodpanda, Deliveroo also has an alcohol delivery service.

To find the alcohol options near you, go to “Categories” and check “Alcohol”. It’s a mish-mash of bars (Harry’s) and wine/liquor stores (Wine Connection) here.

With Deliveroo, there are more alcohol delivery options is from “real” alcohol establishments (wine/liquor stores) instead of, you know, the Caltex minimart.

So it’s better for those with discerning tastes (i.e. you don’t just want to chug KnockOut beer).

Delivery is almost immediate, but unlike Foodpanda, there’s a delivery fee for Deliveroo.

Last I checked, it costs either $3.99 or $4.49 to deliver from most places.

It’s also harder to find cheap booze on Deliveroo compared to Foodpanda.

I managed to find that $26 bottle of wine from Wine Connection, but I had to scroll through a bazillion wines around the $50 range first.

For beer, the cheapest option near me was Drinkies at Deliveroo Editions, which had a $19.20 6-pack of Tiger.

3. GRABFOOD ALCOHOL DELIVERY ($3 TO $5.81, BEER PARTY PACKS)

Irritatingly, GrabFood is available only in-app.

To get to the alcohol delivery part, go to the GrabFood section and then search for “Alcohol”.

What I got was a mish-mash of restaurants (Yayoi Japanese Restaurant), bars (Harry’s) and finally bottle shops.

The cheapest beer I found on GrabFood was from Drinkies, but this time, beer only comes in 12-packs ($38.40), not 6-packs.

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I didn’t get a lot of wine selections either — there was only 1 wine shop and it was like 40 min away.

That said, GrabFood wins points because it has my favourite craft beer shop, Thirsty, which sells 6-packs of craft beer from only $27 ($4.50/can). Worth it!

The only bad thing is that you can’t mix and match, which is kind of the whole point of drinking craft beer.

GrabFood’s alcohol delivery is still fast, just like food delivery, but the lead times lose out a bit to the other 2 food delivery apps.

Delivery costs anything from $3 to $5.81, depending on (I guess) the distance of the shop/bar.

4. PRIME LIQUOR 945 MIN FREE DELIVERY UNTIL 4AM)

There isn’t an on-demand, 24-hour alcohol delivery service in Singapore just yet, but the closest thing I could find is Prime Liquor, which promises to deliver within 45 minutes, all the way from 6pm until 4am.

Their website says 2am, but I could find a 3am to 4am timeslot when I tried to checkout.

However, I’m not sure if this timeslot would be available if you tried to make a purchase as 2am.

Prime Liquor seems very much geared towards big rowdy parties.

They have a lot of big party bundles (e.g. Soju Carbomb, Chivas Cola) which tend to consist of liquor + mixers; you can add on different mixers and ice packs if you like.

It’s not that worthwhile to buy wines or beers from here as they’re cheaper on food delivery apps.

But, remember that food delivery apps are limited by store operating hours and the law (can’t buy booze from the convenience store after 10.30pm).

So in those cases, you’d have to go with one of the dedicated alcohol delivery companies.

Delivery is free with a minimum spend of $100. Otherwise, it’s $8.

5. Alcohol Delivery (1 hour free delivery until 3am)

5. ALCOHOL DELIVERY (1 HOUR FREE DELIVERY UNTIL 3AM)

Because of their good SEO, Alcohol Delivery comes out on top of Google every time. Smart eh?

As with Prime Liquor, you would come to Alcohol Delivery when you need a wider booze selection and/or when the need strikes after 10.30pm at night.

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Their delivery lead time loses out a bit to Prime Liquor — 1 hour delivery and only until 3am.

But, depending on your drinking style, you might prefer Alcohol Delivery.

Unlike Prime Liquor which seems to prioritise getting you smashed with big party packs, Alcohol Delivery sells individual bottles (and even drams of whiskey).

There’s a huge selection of international beers, whiskeys, sakes, aperitifs, wines, etc. Let’s just say if you’re shopping here, you’re probably not interested in getting a 12-pack of Tiger.

Since everything is a la carte, you would probably end up spending a bit more here. On the other hand, the minimum spend for free delivery is only $50.

6. MABUK MONKEY (1 HOUR FREE DELIVERY, COD AVAILABLE)

Based on their Geocities-looking website, I’m guessing that Mabuk Monkey was the first proper alcohol delivery service in Singapore.

These loveable stalwarts are still the go-to guys for reliably cheap booze in single cans/bottles.

A can of Carlsberg costs just $2.90, and there’s also a decent bunch of craft beers from Brewerkz, St Bernardus and BrewDog from $6 to $10 a bottle.

Plus a small selection of liquor ($55 for a bottle of Absolut) and wine ($27 Jacob’s Creek).

Mabuk Monkey offers free delivery with a minimum spend of just $50, and best of all, they accept phone orders and cash on delivery — a lifesaver if you are too drunk to think straight, let alone enter a 16-digit string of numbers.

7. AMAZON PRIME NOW (2 HOUR DELIVERY, $2.99 SUBSCRIPTION APPLIES)

That said, you can totally just sign up for the 30-day free trial and cancel after your booze is delivered.

First-time users can get either a $10 discount off $40 (promo code NOW10) or $20 off $60 if you use a DBS/POSB card (promo code DBSPOSB20).

You’re gonna have to jump through some hoops for discounted booze though.

First, you need to download the Amazon Prime Now app. Then on the homepage, look for the “Chilled Drinks” button, and select “Chilled Alcohol” (the other option is Chilled Juices — as if anyone gives a crap??).

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For all my efforts, I was rewarded with a total of 12 results, of which 2 (Sprite & Pokka Green Tea) weren’t even alcoholic…

Shopping here is like browsing the chiller section of Jasons Marketplace.

There’s no Tiger or Carlsberg; the cheapest 6-pack was Peroni ($25.85, or $4.30/bottle) and, for some reason, there’s both Kilkenny ($25.95) and Guinness Draught ($17.90), both available as 4-packs of 440ml cans. Irish eyes are smiling.

This article was first published in MoneySmart .

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