Well, alcohol in USSR...
First of all, you should understand how distribution is organized in large-scale planned economies in normal circumstances. Special state department (it was called Gosplan, "The State Planning Committee") research a need for all kind of goods in the area. Including alcohol, sure (well, we had our own Prohibition era, so-called "Anti-Alchohol Campaign", 1985-1987, not exactly too effective). Then an order is formed and dropped for the industry. Industry make production under this plan, then products are moved into stores and sold for the money.
For alchohol you have stores with so-called "wine-vodka departments" (винно-водочный отдел) in stores, so you could just buy it and drink at home or with neighbours (drinking in common space like parks was a small misdemeanor, which was quite often overlooked, and even if not, you could drink in back streets and other places; running from police included into experience!), and you had a number of types of restoraunts and caffees, from actual restoraunt where you could order a bottle of vine or vodka, to specialized drinking places, beer halls was the most prominent type, but not the only one.
Theoretically, the system was supposed to be scientific, rational and plan should include an actual population's need for the type of good. In practice, though, system wasn't working ideally, economists from Gosplan were prone to mistakes (being, well, humans, after all), and people are humans beings as well, so a lot of speculative practices existed (and all of this, by the way, is a reason you can get very different answers about personal experience from soviet persons). In the end, it created a situation of permanent deficit - where goods are produced, and in surplus, but it wasn't always easy to get them. Number of examples of the problems and solutions:
1. There was a hierarchy of supply for different population centers. Essentially, higher in administrative chain - better supply (understandable, right?). Like, capital get its share first, then cities nearby, then big cities in province, then smaller cities in provinces, and so on. Better visibility for government -> better supply. Which meant that in Moscow, for example, you could always find a place to buy something, but in Kaluga (160 km)... well, not necessary. That's why joke existed: "What is it - long, green and smell like a sausage? That's a train Moscow-Kaluga." - as people tended to run into bigger cities to check if they can buy things there.
2. A system of deficit created a speculation: when one person buying quite a lot of the good, and then resell it. For example, common subbusiness for taxi drivers was to sell vodka in the night, when stores are closed. Technically, it was a crime, but usually such a people wasn't caught (even if everybody knew that you can just stop a taxi and buy a bottle from driver). That created a practice of, quite from the ground, limitation of selling a kind of good to one buyer - like, "you can't buy more then one bottle per attempt", store clerk wouldn't just sell you. You could try to fight and call oversight, but people was quite understanding (because tomorrow it can be you who is lacking a bottle of vine - or, for example, a bottle of milk for your child).
3. Another kind of speculation was for traders. Imagine you get 100 bottles of vine, and you're living in hamlet where one thousand people live, so you'll get 200 buyers. Quite naturally, you'll reserve some bottles for your friends or important people. This practice was called "to sell things from below the counter", and was damned everywhere. In the end it created a system of interconnected favour networks: store clerk in vine department of the store would reserve a bottle of the vine for a director of the restoraunt, who would reserve a ticket for the clerk, and so on. It wasn't a barter system in common understanding, more like "things are reserved for the friends".
4. And another form of speculation was just that, speculation - when you couldn't buy a bottle for nominal, state-declared price ("vodka was bought off"), but you were ready to overpay some, magically vodka was found in storehouse.
5. Of course, a great number of consumer fraud existed, like underweighting.
6. Also, there was home-made alcohol, when locals just knew who exactly make liquors.
7. And, in the end, practice of drinking spirit-based not-for-drinking stuff existed, like perfume, but it was a kind of marginal thing.
You should also keep in mind that, usually, it wasn't a different types of, let's say, vine in the store. You were buying vine; my father used to joke that the most profound insult from capitalist stores (he was a journalist and had access to foreign travel) was that, when you came in and ask for the beer, clerk is answering "which one?".
All of this also created a system of "special distribution". Some categories of people (state administrators, for instance) just had access to special "stores", where they could get a number of goods (including pricey food or alcohol). "Stores" in inverted commas, as you wouldn't actually pay there - you'll have an access to get a list of goods on limited price tag, which was marked on special tickets. Usually it was a pack (so-called "order", "заказ"), which was pre-packaged, you came in, get your ticked stamped and get a bag. Access to this distribution centers was a priviledge.
Of course, that's very rough description, but I think it's long enough.
