Bringing Alcohol across the Canadian border - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**Brookers13** · 04-05-2007, 10:20 AM

Hey guys.

My best friend's bachelorette party is next weekend and its in Windsor. I've been there millions of times, but I have a questions about taking alcohol in. I found that you can have 1 bottle of wine or liquor or a case of beer, but I was wondering if that's per person or per car? Any info would be a great help! We were planning on bringing a lot from home since it's cheaper here, but if we wind up having to pay taxes on it, we might as well buy it there!

Thanks guys!

**omisan** · 04-05-2007, 11:22 AM

Should be per person... Crossing by car, they didn't even check how much liquor we had last time I drove across. And we did have quite a bit of whiskey.

**Brookers13** · 04-05-2007, 11:25 AM

Ya I've gone through gazillions of times and not gotten checked but once I got stopped going in and leaving so I'm nervous!

xanthuos · 04-05-2007, 01:08 PM

It's per person.

Also, take note of the fact that the bottle of liquor or wine can be as much as 1.14 litres - a "40" in Canuckislang. So if you're bringing liquor, buy a litre bottle at the liquor store rather than a "fifth" (750mL) at the grocery store or whatever. For beer, the limit is a "2-4" (case) of cans or bottles (approximately 355mL each).

When you're returning to the US, don't forget to stop at the duty free! Feel free also to buy as much as you want, the taxes for importing into the US are nearly nothing.

**simply_angelic** · 04-05-2007, 02:09 PM

Duty free's a rip off. They might hack off the tax, but everything is so expensive it's actually probably way MORE when you work it out....

**Brookers13** · 04-05-2007, 06:08 PM

Duty free for us is cheap!

Thanks for the per person info Matt.

**SuDz** · 04-06-2007, 01:07 PM

Last tme I came across the border coming home from Montreal was great. We gave him our ID's and the guy looked at our last names and was like "Your both Irish?" I told him yeah and he goes "Good enough for me. Have a nice ride home." and let us on through. Getting INTO Canada was where we hit problems.

SuDZ

xanthuos · 04-06-2007, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by simply_angelic

Duty free's a rip off. They might hack off the tax, but everything is so expensive it's actually probably way MORE when you work it out....

Not really - for example, in a Windsor duty free, they have 3 litres of Absolut for $36 US ($12 each). Most liquor stores in the US sell a 1L of Absolut for about $25. Johnnie Walker Blue Label goes for about $180-$200 a bottle but you can buy Duty Free for about $140.

I've always found duty free to be good for liquor & cigarettes. As for perfumes, jewelry, watches, etc, it's probably not as good of a deal.

Hope you have fun Brooke.