Dusty hunting in Chicagoland - a lost cause?

[CrispyCritter]

Why do I get the feeling that any stores within 150 miles or so of Chicago have been thoroughly picked over? Only once, ever, have I managed to find anything even approaching a dusty - in my case, a now long-gone green label WT Rye sitting among newer bottles. (checks Google Earth) 160 miles. LOL!

[luther.r]

There are still some bottles out there. I've found several SW Old Fitz Primes, a SW Rebel Yell, and an '80s OGD 114 in the city. I think the larger stores have been picked over, but the small neighborhood places sometimes have stuff sitting on the shelf.

[hectic1]

One never knows what's out in the wild...I've found some things in Chicagoland over the last three years:

ND OGD 86

BHC VSOF

Old Fitz BIB DSP16

WTRB 1997

BHC Dickel

OFBB 2005, 06, 07

Old Fitz Prime 6/90

ETL Gold Wax

EWSB 1989,90,91,93, 95,97

Those are just some of the bottles off the top of my head that I've pulled from the shelves in Chicagoland. That being said, I know that between myself, Thad, and Tom we've pretty much been to about 98% of the stores within a 75 mile radious of Chicago.

[BBQ+Bourbon]

^^^^

That guy is your problem.

[hectic1]

You've gotten a couple of those bottles from my hunts Matty so you're part of the problem with us!

[JayMonster]

In any given location, you never know what may turn up. Even in locations that have already seem to have been picked clean.

Here in NJ for example, every year on the second week of January, all the distributors close for a week. Towards the end of that week, as stores fill in empty spaces before restocking the following week, things that have been sitting in back rooms, on "overstock" shelves up and out of view, or things pushed too far back to normally be found then start to surface.

The following week those one off and/or oddball items once again get shoved somewhere out of the way or pushed aside for the new stock, and you have to wait until the next shelf emptying event to find them again.

[trumpstylz]

Yeah, Chicagoland is tough hood for dusties.

[ILLfarmboy]

I'm a long way from Chicago, South of the QC area, but I can tell you dusty hunting in this part of Illinois, from just North of the Quad Cities to just south of Peoria, sucks too.