At Bottlecapps, we drink TOGETHER.

As a retail or brand partner, we consider your relationship to be personal. We strive to get to know you and your business in the same way that you might do with your pal at the neighborhood bar. Below is a business partner we hope to be ‘drinking with’ for many years to come!

Lee's Discount Liquor

With well over 1,000 partner-stores on the Bottlecapps platform, we’ve heard plenty of great origin stories behind how some of these entrepreneurs came to own their businesses; undoubtedly, one of the very best of these stories belongs to our friends in Las Vegas, Nevada - Lee’s Discount Liquor. 

How did a man who only knew a handful of people in the United States when he arrived in 1980 - a man who, at the time, could not speak English - go on to master the language of an entire industry?

To say that Lee’s Discount Liquor is an absolute gem beloved by both locals and tourists would be an understatement. In a way, Vegas and Lee’s Discount Liquor grew up together. In 1981 when the first store opened, Las Vegas had a population well under 200,000 people. Today, there are over 2,200,000 people living in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, and Lee’s now has 22 retail  locations across Nevada.

Hae Un Lee, an immigrant from Seoul, South Korea, moved to America in 1980. With a degree in economics and a graduate degree in business to his name, Mr. Lee wanted to provide a better life for his three children. His original plan was to start a dry cleaning business in New York City, but after struggles grasping the language needed for that business, he quickly returned to Vegas to try something else.

In fact, because the language barrier was so strong early on, Mr. Lee was forced to be a man of few words. So much so, that one chance encounter at a Las Vegas liquor store and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black later, he had an “aha” moment that changed his life forever …

“There is indeed one person who can help solve “writer’s block”. His name is Mr. Johnnie Walker.” 

― Ashwin Sanghi —

One day, after purchasing a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black at a local store, it dawned on Mr. Lee that his entire shopping experience involved almost zero verbal communication with the clerk other than the price of the bottle. A light bulb went off in Hae Un Lee’s head. Right there on the spot, he decided to start a liquor store. He took out a loan and did just that. 

However, not long after, Mr. Lee became acutely aware that he would need to be able to communicate better with his customers when they asked questions about particular products. So he learned as much English as he could while simultaneously enlisting the help of a friend who ran a liquor store business in Denver. 

Over the last few decades, Hae Un Lee passed his business acumen on to his children, and as the family-business continued to grow, big box competitors like Total Wine and others have tried to take them down, but time and time again, Lee’s has stood strong. Hae Un’s late son Kenny Lee was one of those children that had a heart of gold and a great sense of humor. He was beloved by the community and his employees. His commitment to this company over the years was unparalleled. As a family-owned business that has grown alongside the city of Las Vegas for over 40 years, all outside efforts to capture the market from Lee’s has proven futile.

Could it be the low prices Lee’s is known for? Maybe. Could it be the hilarious commercials and billboards? Possibly. But there is more to the story than that. Lee’s Discount Liquor has fully ingratiated themselves in the community. Created by Hae Un and his wife, Sun Lee, Lee’s Helping Hand Foundation is the philanthropic side of the store (that most people don’t see) with a stated goal “to promote and support the local non-profit organizations and the community's youths by providing supervised athletic, academic, artistic and other after school recreational activities.” 

Sadly, Hae Un Lee passed away in 2021, but the legacy he built will live on forever.

Locals love them, tourists love them, and despite the multiple tragedies the Lee family has endured over the last two years, the unrelenting support from Nevada and from visitors remains steadfast. They show no sign of slowing down. The privilege of being the preferred ecommerce platform for a store as respected as Lee’s is an honor Bottlecapps takes very seriously, and if the past is any indication of what’s to come, this partnership will yield some powerful results in 2023. We expect nothing else from this family 💯