Sodie’s Wine and Spirits, a 10,000-square-foot full service liquor store, recently held its grand opening in Fort Smith.
The new operation is located at 5401 Phoenix Ave., and store hours are Monday-Thursday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Friday-Saturday 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
In addition to being locally built, Sodie’s offers many products from the area as well. A number of craft beers brewed in Arkansas are available at the store’s “Growler Station.” Growlers are 32 and 64 oz. jugs filled with craft beer from a keg and sealed for off-premises consumption. The growlers just became legal for retail sale last July. This allowed Sodie’s to actually put the craft beer kegs in the cooler and route the lines through the slab to the tasting area in the store.
“It’s exciting to bring something new and unique to the community,” said Sodie’s owner, Scott Clark. “You know what I’m most proud of is that this place was built by Fort Smith. Every tradesman, contractor, wholesaler… everybody working here was from Fort Smith and that’s hard to say on a lot of projects.”
Sodie’s also boasts the state’s only enomatic wine dispensing system. The system uses inert gas to preserve opened bottles of wine for up to four weeks. Up to eight wines will be available at Sodie’s tasting area at any given time.
“It’s similar to the idea of a perfume counter,” said Clark. “You can sample a wine before you decide if you want to invest in it.”
Also inside the store is a walk-in humidor made of Spanish cedar, a hard wood that easily absorbs humidity and releases a mild aroma. It is stocked with cigars for sale.