I finally made all the information available from NCABC work for me. Recently in Wake County the ABC stores got rid of all the waiting lists. Now all bottles are distributed as evenly as possible to the 24 stores in the county. This was an effort to make the system fair for everyone and while I admire it, it really makes it difficult to find something special. The other day I happened to be checking out the NC Warehouse Stock Status Report and spotted a special item on it in stock. I called Wake County ABC to try and order a case to get ahead of the curve and it was allocated so that was not possible. After asking several questions I determined some of the Wake County stores receive their shipments directly from the NC Warehouse and others from the Wake County warehouse. Of the stores close to me, one is a Monday delivery from the NC Warehouse and the other two are Thursday from Raleigh. It was not possible to tell what Monday the one close to me would get the goodies, nor what Thursday, so that meant checking repeatedly. I was out of town last week, but checked one of the Thursday stores on my return and they had not gotten the item. Knowing this I figured the Monday delivery had not received it earlier in the week. As luck would have it I needed to be out and about on Monday to pick up some items and so I went to the ABC store and walked in just as it opened. They had received the item last week, but received one additional case of three yesterday and I was lucky enough to bring one home.
So it is possible to get any new item at a Wake County ABC location. If you can find a location which is convenient to you and determine their warehouse delivery date and time you could simply stop by near opening time on that day and get anything new. As most of the items are not something I am after I will just keep checking the Warehouse report and once I see an item in stock I will then start making the rounds. My next goal with this quest would be to get a list of all the delivery days for all the ABC stores in close proximity. I have three, but knowing another handful could prove useful.