AsiaDrinks: a Swiss sake store with age checks at 16 and 18

Who AsiaDrinks are

AsiaDrinks import sake, Asian spirits, liqueurs and tea into Switzerland and sell them online. The founders visited the breweries themselves and stock 50+ products from 17 regions, each with its own flavour profile, and they publish a sake wiki and stories so a first-time buyer knows what they are drinking.

The problem

Swiss law sets two age limits for alcohol: 16 for beer, wine and sake-strength drinks, 18 for spirits. A store that sells both has to check the right age for the right product, at the right moment, in a way the authorities accept and a customer does not mind. The brand also needed a store that explains sake as well as it sells it.

What we built

Age verification that follows Swiss law

Every product carries its alcohol content and its legal age limit. The check runs where it matters: a 16-and-over check for sake and liqueurs, an 18-and-over check for spirits, whisky and gin, and the stricter check wins when a cart holds both. The customer confirms once per session, the store remembers it, and the order is blocked at checkout if the rule is not met.

A flavour profile on every bottle

Each product is rated out of seven on dry, fruity, full-bodied, spicy, refreshing and sweet, stored as metafields and drawn as a profile on the product page and in the collection grid. Shoppers compare bottles at a glance instead of reading tasting notes.

Wiki, stories and pairings

The sake wiki, starter guide and food-pairing articles are built as pages and blog posts the team writes themselves, each linking to the bottles it mentions. Region and prefecture pages do the same for the catalogue.

Results

• Age checks at 16 and 18 that match Swiss law, product by product.
• A custom store in German and English with CHF pricing and free shipping from CHF 99.
• A flavour profile and a wiki that let the team sell a category most Swiss shoppers are new to.

How it is built

Shopify with a custom theme, product metafields for alcohol content, age limit and flavour profile, a session-based age gate with a checkout validation, Shopify Markets for German and English, and the blog for the wiki and stories.