All Activity

Happy Anniversary!!

Sitting outside burning up the severed pieces of an old wooden ladder in the fire pit. Old Forester Rye seemed like the recommended pour for such activities as this. The neighborhood frogs are trilling their approval.

That’s encouraging! I heard recently from a friend that they saw several bottles at a store in Bardstown. Said friend didn’t mention that he didn’t pick some up for me…

We celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary today. I took the day off and we went back to the carousel where we got married. That's the same horse. Hung out with our grandson and daughter at the Butterfly House, then had a nice Jamaican cafe dinner. Capped it off with some roses. Was a nice day. Glad I'll be working from home tomorrow!

Always good to have a backup. I have been looking to add this and the George T Stagg. Not easy to come by for me

Dearly departed Pops was an Art teacher and avid photographer. Maybe a bit of it rubbed off. I sure can't paint or draw worth a darn!

Gotta dredge up this topic again because a local monger just posted availability on their Facebook page. I shall do recon tomorrow on pricing and find out if he knows anything more. I will pick one up if it comes in around $45 or less. I am in Wisconsin, so that may answer the limited availability question already.

It was on the shelf at Binny's in Chicagoland. I passed.

Like most things anticipated and new, probably not dropped in quantity. The TW I stopped by a few days ago said theirs disappeared quick. Probably just a way to keep someone from clearing the shelf and pimping it elsewhere. The 4R OESO/OESK/OESV was the same here when it first released. Limited drop, disappeared quick. Now it's everywhere.

I haven't seen a bottle of ER anywhere, in years. I live in Ohio, so................

Stopped by my neighborhood store just to see if they had anything new in and it turns out they did. I’ve become a big fan of the New Riff 8-year-old and I’ve been looking for the Old Fitz 7-year-old. He had an Eagle Rare for me behind the counter, which I couldn’t pass up at MSRP, despite having a couple of backups. The Eagle Rare will make a good gift for an employee‘s birthday that’s coming up next week.

Tomorrow can’t be Friday, can it? Starting with The Laddie 10 on Last Day Of The Work Week Eve…

American single malts can be good, and Stranahan's is fine. I like it at the price point but I am not sure it is representative of what you would get from Scotch or even single malts from some other countries. Until recently there was no standard for American single malts so the differences between distiller A and distiller B can be drastic. Frankly, they can still be pretty different although it isn't a free for all anymore. If you want to know what scotch is like, I would stick to some of the bottles I recommended, or ask about some others, even independent bottlers. If you want a good American single malt, Stranahan's is a good place to start. New Riff makes a cool single malt at a similar price point, as does Old Line. Westward does as well, but I have not tried any of their bottles yet. Westland can be good as well, but it depends on the bottle.

This is very well stated. I'm still searching for the Russell's Reserve 15. The 13 will have to do for now. It's a toss up for me as to which is better Russell's Reserve 13 of Jack Daniels 12.

Went out tonight and looked at the local Spec's. They had the Wild Turkey 101 - 8 year. I noted it was in the allocated section. I really never noted it before, not being on the lookout for it. Is it that hard to come by?

and it plus or minus $45, a solid option. Have you tried the higher proof grain to glass?

yes indeed. Lou's is always a treat for me. You can get them shipped but they're not the same. I expect we will get a Lou's here at some point as they tend to follow Portillos. On that note, I think it's probable you will see Portillos come your way. The Lou's in Schaumburg was about 5 minutes from where I grew up, and I've been to the one in Elk Grove countless times as I used to work there. The reference to Nancy's was interesting. When I lived in Chicago, we'd hit Nancy's for dinner before a Sox game. There was a restaurant not to far from Comiskey, and Teddy's is legendary too. I think they would throw the freshly cut fries in withe hot dogs. Just awesome.

I'm just amazed at how challenging it is to find buffalo trace products. I see this from many you tube influencers. While I don't have all of the Buffalo Trace offerings, I do have the 4 EH Taylor varieties, All of the Weller's minus Single Barrel, Eagle Rare, Stagg Jr, and a couple Benchmarks. At the same time, one can buy Elmer T Lee, George T Stagg, Sazerac Rye, Rock Hill Farms fairly easily, and much below the typical secondary market. At the same time, there are many bourbons that are easier to find elsewhere that I have been thus far unable to find. As the commercial used to say, location, location, location

I can still find Bowman products, and their Bowman Bros small batch is an effective substitute for BT. Their single barrel is hard to find but not impossible. And they make a good port cask version which considering price and quality is unique in the market. I get that the "villains" may more fairly lie with the middlemen and the retailers, although making money off a shortage in supply (or a surge in demand) is not villainy. Surges in demand happen because of cultural factors, including manipulation by influencers. It's refreshing that there is, nowadays, ready access to influencers not in the pay of, or the recipient of advertising by, the distilleries and the companies that own them. Resources like this board. Shortages in supply, however, are still susceptible to corporate manipulation. Here the three tier distribution system presents a problem. When a retailer buys its product from the manufacturer, the manufacturer can, if it gives a darn, effectively police a retailer that would sully its products' reputation by price gouging. But can a distillery have any influence over a price gouging retailer when it can only sell its product to a middleman distributor who doesn't give a darn? I understand why things are as they are with the allocated stuff. But why is BT unique with respect to the unavailability of its mainstream producr?

Sadly, I don’t think they do 90p picks anymore. You might stumble upon a dusty if you look hard in the backs of shelves in out of the way places though…

Texas had long been Sazerac’s largest market for the Weller brand. Sounds like that may still be the case!

so strange as they're almost always available in my part of Texas..

Thank you for responding and for the recommendations. Cask Strength is more than okay! I like rich whiskey/ bourbon. I've been debating the concept of Single Malt whiskey's. Stranahan's keeps coming to mind. Having never tried them before, I don't know if I will like them or not. The Sherry cask or bourbon cask seems intriguing.

BT hasn’t created an artificial shortage. The are many reasons for the “artificial shortage”. One reason is people perpetuating the myth of a shortage so they to won’t lose their cash cow. The taters buying in large quantities just to sell on the secondary market. Also with that are the people that buy products just as trophies. Believe me, I’ve seen pictures of some collections on different FB pages. Part of the blame also lies with “questionable” distributors. They might fill, or partially fill an order of allocated items, but you’ll have to buy a bunch of “other” products that don’t sell very well. I see this all the time at one store I frequent. After sitting on the shelf for too long a time, these bottles end up on sale in clearance carts. One local distributor won’t sell stores cases of a product so they won’t have to give a case discount. Then there’s the tater stores. They get allocated items, but mark them up at two or three times msrp. Other stores have allocated items, but not out on the shelf. You have to ask if they have anything. In many instances they’ll have them, but say they don’t. In order to purchase allocated items, you have to be a “preferred” customer. I know these to be facts. I have a friend that used to be the liquor manager at a grocery store. He tried to be fair and above board with his pricing, but kept getting pressured by the store owner/manager to keep raising prices. He finally had enough and quit. I also had a couple of other friends that used to work at a high profile liquor chain. On more than one occasion I asked assistant managers if they had anything good. I was told no. I later talked to my friend(s) that worked there and found out I was lied to. Even though I spent a lot of money there over the years, I wasn’t good enough. Thank goodness there’s one local store that is honest and above board. It’s pretty much the only place around that sells allocated items at or just above msrp.

Do you prefer smooth or rich (you can have both) and, I assume from other things you appear to drink, cask strength okay. What is your price range? I would recommend a sherry cask finish and also a bourbon cask aged single malt to try. I love both, but I'd be curious to see what your preferences are. For readily available sherry casks: Macallan 12 (not cask strength), the Glendronach Cask Strength (Batch 10 and 11 are out now I think), or the Aberlour A'bunadh Sherry Cask. For Bourbon Cask: Aberlour A'bunadh Alba Bourbon Cask (which is cask strength) is a great place to start. There are also many independent bottlers that bottle amazing single malts, but hard to recommend one bottle since they are often single barrels. I do like Blackadder and Single Cask Nation as well as many other independent bottlers. I can discuss this more if you are interested.