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HAMPTON, N.H. — Over Independence Day weekend, a million vehicles cruised the Maine Turnpike, as Interstate 95 is known north of the Piscataqua River. It is impossible to say exactly how many of those cars first stopped at New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlet No. 76, but a bit of regional vernacular — “hella wicked many” — will suffice for an estimate.

New Hampshire has sold tax-free liquor at state-run shops since the repeal of Prohibition. No. 76 opened (on I-95 North, as convenient to passing motorists as a service plaza) in 1981, within the town limits of Hampton. “It was the No. 1 store within 12 months,” said Joseph W. Mollica, chairman of New Hampshire liquor commission. “That was the flagship.”

With annual sales of $33.5 million, it remains the top-grossing liquor store in New Hampshire. Most customers come from out of state. In summer, when Maine transforms into vacationland, they come in droves, and a rest stop emerges as a ritual institution.

A promotional item sparkling at the entrance — an Absolut vodka disco-ball cooler — sets a certain mood. At No. 76, provisioning is a party in its own right. Over three days at the start of the high season, I watched shoppers eagerly mass for an 8 a.m. opening and, hours later, sprint to make their closing-time rendezvous with Jack Daniel’s.

I listened as they debated their purchases before winding to the eight checkout lanes, where people visiting their ancestors’ coastal cottages lined up alongside those venturing to their friend-of-a-friend’s lake cabins.

I encountered many compelling creatures, the best dressed being Lucy, a terrier mix wearing a patriotic leotard and tutu and occupying a shopping cart’s child seat. Lucy’s ensemble matched the star-spangled bottles of Svedka vodka being snatched up by 20-somethings.

Moreover, it suited the air of an establishment doubling as an 8,500-square-foot storehouse of hopes for relaxation and refreshment. No. 76 is squarely committed to the pursuit of happiness, if happiness can be said to involve a bargain-priced bottle of spiced rum carried with a studiously insouciant backhanded grip.

According to Mr. Mollica’s office, the average customer here spends $70.98 on 2.24 bottles of spirits and 2.15 bottles of wine. According to my own eyes, the average customer is rather extraordinary.

In the parking lot, I met the Boston-based chief executive of a bio-tech firm who could only get away to Sebago Lake for one night. Nonetheless, he loaded into his Benz a half-dozen bottles of cabernet sauvignon and a couple of nice tawny ports.

I also met a boat builder from Plympton, Mass., who helmed a 1972 Winnebago towing the superlatively recreational vehicle of a campus-safety golf cart repainted with the legend “Fun Police.” Like the $10 bottle of gin bought by his wife, the golf cart would enliven their campground in the town of Arundel, Me.

Inside, there was the variegated flavor of a way station and a charge of anticipation. Shoppers easing into their vacation personae checked themselves in the mirror of strangers’ gazes. You could tell which women were from New York City by the clacks of their gait. You could tell which dudes were from Boston because their T-shirts told you they were from Boston.

You could tell the Canadians by their polite habit of conforming to stereotype. That Saturday afternoon found Marc Gilbert, a 49-year-old consultant from Toronto, carefully tallying the wine bottles in his basket. He and his wife were selecting “just enough to last 30 days” of hosting in Kennebunk, Me.

She supplied a breakdown in a Québécois accent: “Twenty reds, 10 whites, six Champagne, and a lot of that,” she said, gesturing at what Mr. Gilbert labeled “margarita action.”

The store’s selection, though perfectly sound and memorably broad, will not necessarily satisfy a staunch wine snob or a hard-core cocktail nerd. The young lady who, failing to locate a particular brandy, voiced confidence in “finding it in Bar Harbor” was justified in her belief.

But the shelves teem with pleasant surprises (premixed Negronis!), odd novelties (six-ounce goblets of chardonnay) and kitschy conveniences (Disaronno packaged with a lemon squeezer for your amaretto-sour needs). Travelers laying virgin eyes on all this motley grandeur are commonly moved to speak the Lord’s name.

(No. 76 has a sister store, No. 73, on the southbound side of the Interstate, where, wielding the ambience of a duty-free shop, it caters to a clientele that has not blown all of its cash on lobster rolls.)

This adult-beverage emporium is very much a family affair. A major theme of conversation — more dominant even than the bittersweet recollections of Jägermeister phases or weary laments that the place sells no beer — is What Grandma Wants.

Does she require the merlot? The Bombay? Raspberry schnapps? “It’s probably down here, Grandma, if you want the raspberry, ‘cause I see ‘fruit liqueur.’” So much deference is paid to Grandma’s wishes that one begins to understand the North American vacation as a matriarchal ceremony fueled by Bailey’s Irish Cream.

A father explaining to his son that Grandma wanted extra dry Champagne tried to teach the boy the difference between extra dry and brut. His lesson was met with a wisecrack: “I normally like my liquids wet.”

The grandson’s wryness is typical of his demographic’s attitude to the spectacle, which tends to combine humble study of the bottles and amused derision for the language in which they come wrapped.

One boy gave a dramatic reading of the tasting notes for a $3,700 bottle of scotch. “A rich toffee note develops, over a waxy mineral base that becomes beachlike as the assault grows,” he intoned, to the giggles of siblings, as if the text had been installed specially for their entertainment, which maybe it had been.

In due course, the lad may enjoy a site-specific coming-of-age. Mike Dumont and Geoff Rybitski, cousins from Bethlehem, Pa., were headed to a family lake house near Bangor, Me., with Mr. Rybitski’s girlfriend and, now, a moderate quantity of whiskey. “I’m 21,” Mr. Dumont said. “I’m also 21,” Mr. Rybitski added. “We go there every year, and this was the first year that we could buy.” They had three to four more hours of driving ahead, but they glowed with the feeling of having arrived.

I discovered a 38-year-old schoolteacher idly strolling the aisles while his wife compared wines. He was far more sedate than the average customers who, stimulated by the festivity of the moment and the threat of thick traffic ahead, operated in a giddy low-grade frenzy. He gave his name as Charlie, his home as Brooklyn, his destination as his parents’ Deer Isle summer house.

“It’s nostalgic,” Charlie said of his shopping trip. “I’ve been coming up to Maine since the mid-’90s, and my dad used to print up, in the pre-smartphone days, an itinerary with all the highway exits and rest stops, and he always listed this place. My mom did all the driving, and if she ever drove past it without stopping, he’d complain.”

“He was a bourbon man,” Charlie added. “He doesn’t really drink anymore.”