How I did not discover by now is beyond me. If you need a nice stiff drink this holiday season, here’s an extremely good deal.

With the Hooch app, you get 1 drink per day (in select cities) for ~$10 a month. The list of bars is pretty solid – and more importantly, the drinks are good!

And if you use my link to sign-up, your first month is only $1! Plus, they have a great deal on gift memberships until November 26th, 2017 (Sunday)!

I tried the app myself. Here’s what I think so far.

Out and Out’s Hooch app review

• Link: Sign-up for Hooch 

To start, the reason I downloaded the app is because I live in Dallas (one of the featured cities). And my first month was only $1. I saw I could cancel any time, so I set a reminder in Todoist to do just that if I didn’t like it.

Plus, I noticed one of the participating bars was literally across the street from my downtown Dallas Airbnb. And I was going there that night!

I put it to use right away.

For one, you can NOT go in and order any cocktail. Instead, you have 3 options to choose from. Mine were:

• Miss Mitchell (a bubbly cocktail)
• Pony + Shot (Miller High Life and Legacy whiskey)
• Classic gin and tonic (duh)

On the menu, these drinks were all ~$12+. So I got my money’s worth right away!

Once you tap “Select Drink,” you have 3 minutes to show a bartender – because at this point you’ve redeemed your drink for the day.

I showed the bartender the app and he knew what it was right away and confirmed the gin and tonic. Easy as that. No codes to scan or anything.

A few minutes later…

…I had G&T in hand. 🙂

The redemption could not have been simpler. I had my drink, left a few bucks as tip (you MUST tip!) and headed home. I’m in that area a few times a month, and I like the bar, so ~$10 a month for a nice cocktail is a screaming good deal. The Mitchell might even become my new go-to downtown.

Pro tip: I noticed the free drink reset at midnight. So if you time it right and you’re out drinking late, it could be possible to get 2 free drinks in the same outing. Just remember to tip your bartender!

Cities where you can use Hooch

Hooch currently serves:

• Arizona: Phoenix
• California: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco
• Florida: Miami
• New Jersey: NNJ
• New York: NYC
• Texas: Austin and Dallas
• Hong Kong

So if you live in one of these 10 cities/regions, the Hooch app might be well worth your time. Especially in typically expensive places like New York and Los Angeles!

The bar selection

You can’t just go into any bar and use Hooch – only ones from their list. I was concerned the bars in Dallas wouldn’t be of interest.  But was pleasantly surprised to find a few gems on the list – places I’d actually been to before and enjoyed, like:

• Common Table
• The Standard Pour
• Grayson Social
• The Mitchell
• Bolsa

Dallas alone has 22 bars on the list, in areas ranging from Uptown to Downtown to Bishop Arts to Deep Ellum.

Sorry if that all read like gobbedly-gook. The point is, these are nice bars spread out all over the city – and that was really nice to see.

Are there drawbacks?

Not reeeeally. It was a slow night at The Mitchell so I asked the bartender if he’d seen Hooch before. “Oh yeah,” he kinda sighed. “Those people never tip.”

“Oh, has it been around for a while?” “Yeah, over a year I’d say.”

I was shocked I hadn’t heard of this app before. And just now discovered it. Apparently, the bar list rotates periodically because bars get fed up with peeps coming in, getting a drink, and not leaving a tip.

So if a bar you like participates, by all means make it worth their while. No one in the service industry wants to work for free. If anything, overtip, because you don’t actually have to pay for the drink. That’ll help make sure your favorite bar stays on the list for a while!

Other than that, the only other minor criticism is the selection of bars. While 22 upscale bars in Dallas is a nice curated list, there are hundreds of bars in Dallas.

Still, I don’t see this as a bad thing. It gets me out of my comfort zone and into new venues, and inspires me to try new drinks. Plus, if I really like a place (like The Mitchell), I can return over and over and get a free drink every day (time permitting, praise gods).

What do others have to say?

In digging around for reviews, again, I was shocked to see some of there were from 2016. Where has Hooch been all my life?!

But here are a few more insights to help you decide if you should try it:

• Current NYC “Hooch” App Spots (Yelp list from July 2017)
• App Spotlight: Introducing Hooch, a New Way to Bar Hop in NYC (Buzz Tonight)
• Why the new Hooch app is the greatest deal in L.A.: $99 buys you 365 cocktails (LA Times)
• Score a drink a day with Hooch, a subscription-based cocktail app (TechCrunch review)

Again, some of these are dated, so I have no idea what bars are on the list as of November 2017.

Heck, if anything, if you live in one of the featured cities, why not give it a download and see what’s available now? There’s no commitment, and you might end up having a little fun. 😉

Sweeten the deal

Through this Sunday, November 26, 2017, there’s a deal to save up to 50% off on a membership, either for yourself or as a gift:

It doesn’t make sense to buy the 3-month membership for yourself because the monthly price is the same. But it could make a super fun gift if someone you know lives in a Hooch-served city.

And the 12-month option is an amazing deal. A year of drinks for only ~$60?! Incredible.

Of course, a deal is only good if you’ll use it. But if you can… these are the kind of Black Friday sales I can get into!

Bottom line

• Link: Sign-up for Hooch 

Thought I’d share the Hooch app so peeps in a serviced city could give it a try. I’ve found my experience so far to be easy and… boozy lol.

I don’t get anything if you get in on this deal. Just thought it was a neat service. Kinda like a MoviePass for drinks. 😉

If you’ve used Hooch, what did you think? Or if you haven’t, give it a try and let me know if it’s useful!

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