BTAC and Van Winkle nonsense

[MarkEdwards]

Good call. eBay prices for the PVW15 are topping $200...WTF? I would rather slowly sip on rotgut moonshine than $200 Pappy 15.

I just recently sold an extra bottle to another SB member who could not find any at the price I paid for it ($70). Looks like I left $130 on the table - oh well, it found a good home and karma will bring me a BMH23.

Bless you. You are a wonderful human being and will have a place in whiskey heaven.

[TheDude]

Do you think this may be because of marketing decisions to keep supply limited, or perhaps just an inability to find the resources, i.e. people, time, ingredients, etc., to meet demand?

If Scotland can meet the demand then why can't we? I have to believe that the BTAC and Van Winkle producers have known for years about the demand for their products and could have planned for ageing more whiskey to meet the increase...

I'm not an expert on the scotch industry, but in relation to bourbon I don't think that distillers could really have anticipated the enormous popularity that the spirit has enjoyed in the past 5 years or so. Like any business, its driven by profit--and none of them want to have more bourbon on hand than they can bottle and sell like they did in the 70s.

There is no doubt that the Van Winkle family uses "limited" supply to create the cult following of the ORVW and various Pappy's, but I do believe that there probably are limited quantities of mature bourbon. This would be especially true for the 20 and 23 year runs. There was no crystal ball in the early 90s that would have allowed them to see how much Pappy they would have to produce to meet demand.

Maybe Julian Van Winkle and BT are barreling more PVW to make it more readily available in the coming decades. But then again, an ample supply would mean more sitting on the shelves, which really would lessen the "mystique" of the brand. So who knows....

[Old Lamplighter]

But then again, an ample supply would mean more sitting on the shelves, which really would lessen the "mystique" of the brand. So who knows....

It might be easier to figure out Nostradamus' quatrains, the Mayan calendar or end time Biblical prophecies...lol

[Bmac]

There might be some trickery. I discovered that in my area of Dallas TX, the liquor stores didn't receive any allotment of the 2011 version of WLW. I bought two bottles from two different stores and both were the 2010 release (based on proof). I asked the managers of both locations and they had just pulled them from the box. Further evidence was that the remaining brands that came with it (GTS, THHS, and ER17) were all 2011 releases.

So, does that m an BT held on to an allotment of 2010 WLW because they knew there wouldn't be enough 2011 to go around? Or did the distributors make the swap when Jim Murray announced that the 2011 WLW was one of the top whiskey of the world.

I have heard of this practice with the Pappy products.

[bourboncc]

I picked up this issue at the airport yesterday and was happy to see that the main article was written by Lew Bryson (not surprising, since Whisky Advocate, née Malt Advocate, is now a publication of M. Shanken). It's a good read, even for those of us who've been around bourbon for a while, and there's a nice review section.

Agreed. Read the article and reviews at a Barnes and Noble the other day, it would be an ideal introductory article for the budding bourbon lover.