I was thinking of starting this off with a dumb joke about needing help with that “hard to find” stuff, but I’ll spare everyone that and just introduce myself.

My whiskey (and whisky…to a lesser extent) back story is that I started getting into it late last year. I was a beer and wine drinker, and was looking for something a little more “concentrated” to carry when I go backpacking. I started off with Everclear, but soon decided that it’s probably better served as a fuel source for my alcohol stove rather than an evening drink. So that brought me to exploring the more flavorful brown liquids, where I got my start with scotch. After buying several 750ml bottles and realizing scotch is fairly expensive compared to the homegrown stuff, I thought I’d try some bourbons. I really got into the flavor profile of bourbon, and fast forward to present it turns out I’m a lover of bourbon, rye and Islay scotches.

I’ve been working my way through many lower to midrange bourbons and ryes as well as a few higher end ones, and so far am a big fan of EWSB, FC, VOB BiB, ETL, FRSB, OWA, RR and WTR 101 amongst others. As a matter of fact, I really haven’t tried anything that I haven’t liked with the exception of Buffalo Trace. I need to give it another try though (I have a TPS bottle I haven’t opened yet) because I think I got one of the “musty” bottles. Oh yeah, and the Heaven Hill white label 80 proof didn’t really impress me either.

As part of this new found hobby I have accumulated a bunker (or collection if you prefer). I don’t remember the term that I assume was coined here for the person that gets nervous and has to make sure they have at least one of everything (Whiskirexia Nervosa or something like that…love that term by the way), but I seem to be that guy. I’m mainly bunkering one or two bottles of any hard to find and limited release/allocated stuff just to get a hold of it while it’s available so that I’ll have some in the future when I get around to actually opening it…and yes, I do plan to open and consume all of it at some point (i.e. rather than trying to sell it) just in case you were wondering.

I’ve also done my share of hunting for allocated items, and I have to say that after a year of it I have become quite discouraged by the whole thing to where I think I’m just gonna quit hunting that crap. I have managed to get a bottle of just about everything I wanted to try, but have yet to obtain a PVW product (i.e. the 15 or 20 year old ones…not too interested in the 23 year old). I thought I had done the appropriate amount of leg work to obtain at least one of these this fall after getting snubbed last year, but alas I have been snubbed thus far this year too. The good thing is that outside of those ridiculously hard to get allocated items (PVW and to a slightly lesser extent BTAC) I do travel occasionally (business and pleasure), and that has allowed me to obtain lots of stuff I can’t get here in VA as well as “catch up” on getting some one time releases that were out before I got into whiskey.

Ok, this got a bit too wordy so I’ll wrap it up. I just wanted to add that I love these forums, on which I have been lurking for quite some time, as a resource because I have gleaned a bunch of great info from here. Some of you guys have probably forgotten more than I will ever know about whiskey. If it weren’t for these forums I’d probably still be drinking just EC12 and ESWB, and never would have tried such gems as FC, VOB BiB, and AAA 10 year to name a few. There is one negative to these forums though, and that has to do with the amount of cash I’ve spent on whiskey so far .

At any rate, that’s a bit (or maybe a lot) about me. I’m looking forward to hanging out and hopefully making some useful contributions.