Walking up to Liquor Mania, you can feel this sudden urge of excitement and you can hear the cheerful voices chattering away inside the store. The shop looks tired, broken down, exhausted almost, yet it still manages to hold itself up for its beloved customers. The creeks and moans still lurk in the walls of the store but are nowhere to be seen during the open hours of the best store in Diagon Alley. The outside of the walls are made of aged brick which has now changed from its red and rustic look to a dark and gloomy one. The windows are black, as black as night, and the only way to see through is to press your forehead and nose up against the dusty glass.
As you emerge through the doorway of the shop, the atmosphere suddenly changes, on the outside, it’s darkened and murky, but on the inside, it’s vibrant and bright. The room is white and stainless, the shelves are the same, but on them, they hold a magnificent rainbow of colourful fruity drinks for the public to admire.
You can hear the very excited customers talking all around the store about the drinks and which ones to buy. The clinks of glass bottles hitting each other appear every so often during the conversations of the public. Walking through the multicoloured isles is like walking through a rainbow. The smell in the shop is one that you could never forget, so enjoyable and joyous. Each isle has a different set of smells depending on what flavour is most prominent in that area. As you pick up the bottle to get another whiff of the smell, you feel the bottle slowly change shape to fit the size of your hand.
Walking up to the counter with your drinks, you find that there is no staff present to help you. Instead, you find a bunch of electronic screens that say ‘pay here’. Walking up to a vacant screen, you have a look over at another to see what they are like. You see a video with a staff member directing the customer and telling them how to purchase their products. Finally making it over to a station, you find that there is no video displaying. You kick it, slap it and bash it, and just as you are about to walk away and find another device, the video starts playing. Touching it, I realised that the screen wasn’t a solid surface, but more of a slimy jelly type that you could stick your fingers in.
Coming out of the shop, you immediately pull out the luscious, vibrant drink and give it a taste. You pop the cap off and get a stronger smell than before. You place your lips around the bottle and tip the bottle up. The drink falls subtly into your mouth. It tastes like a glitter bomb exploding inside of your mouth with patches of sweetness to give it that extra hint of delight. Now I realise why this is the best store in Diagon Alley.
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