Restaurant man Posted November 21, 2013 Share Posted November 21, 2013 I'd put my trust in the Tallahassee team.What he said :smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burghguy Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 Is it taboo to name the store this "Tallahassee team" works for? I might be visiting in that area in the near future and would want to check it out. If it is taboo to mention on the website, could I get a PM with the name? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squire Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 Market Square Liquors in Tallahassee. I wouldn't say the team 'works' there but are reputed to be a presence on the premises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tanstaafl2 Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 Market Square Liquors in Tallahassee. I wouldn't say the team 'works' there but are reputed to be a presence on the premises.There are several in the area but the main one has an affiliated bar next door, called "The Lounge" I believe, where you can try much of the whiskey beforehand. A tremendous idea I must say! It is just too bad Atlanta isn't that flexible with their antiquated liquor laws. One of the "team" will no doubt know more details! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PcolaDawg Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Market Square Liquors in Tallahassee. I wouldn't say the team 'works' there but are reputed to be a presence on the premises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokinjoe Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Just took my son there yesterday. He was visiting from Virginia and wanted to visit Bourbon Mecca. :cool:He left with, among other things, a 1.75 litre jug of hand picked Buffalo Trace. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsangster Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Have to agree on the BT. The bottle I bought in September didn't survive the week vacation at the beach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PcolaDawg Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Excellent choice. That is a great barrel. I dipped (a couple of times ) into the bottle on the table at the last GBS/TWS meet-up earlier this month. Fabulous whiskey. Yeah, I already had a 750 ml bottle of BT that was part of the 'hand picked' selection and among all of the samples I had in my private stash, that was his favorite. And I'm not surprised. Just a fine honey barrel of a choice, imvho. Anyway, when we got in the store and saw the 1.75 litre jug he knew that was 'the one'. When we asked and found out that it was bottled from a different barrel than the smaller bottles, it gave him some pause, but the Market Square BST has never done us wrong so he went with it. Well, we (of course) broke it open last night ...... and it was pretty awesome. So good I might be back to buy a jug of it, even though I haven't finished my smaller bottle yet. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sailor22 Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Hey Dawg - shoot High Horse or me a heads up if your headed this way - always fun to meet a SB guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmpevans Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Excellent choice. That is a great barrel. I dipped (a couple of times ) into the bottle on the table at the last GBS/TWS meet-up earlier this month. Fabulous whiskey. Agreed. Some fine BT in that bottle. Nice that it's a "family size" also.:cool: Congrats on your 5000th post SmokinJoe. Work, work, work......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Debord Posted November 27, 2013 Author Share Posted November 27, 2013 I am really glad to see this thread make it to 6 pages!It has been good to learn about the selection and pricing side of things. Having staff picks and store selectors is a good thing so long as they don't mark up the price as a result of their efforts to select. It sounds like many stores select good quality bourbon and keep prices steady. That only helps the industry and the consumer.Since beginning this thread, I bought a $29.99 (standard Chicago price) bottle of Binny's hand-picked ETL. It is one amazing bottle and one stand-out bourbon. Very pleased.Best, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Santana Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I went by one of my regular haunts just to see if they had anything new, and got talking to one of their staff who seemed quite knowledgable. He said they'll be having a store select EC12 coming in soon - he was part of the selection process and was rather geeked about it. Will have to try it out.Speaking of store selections, I picked up an ER10 at another one of my stops. The guy told me they had the barrel itself for sale, nice logo burned into the side, etc. They wanted $200, but I'm almost certain they'd take less. I'm somewhat interested - might be a fun sipping table to put on the back deck, although that would mean I'd have to buy a couple of stools to sit next to it. Maybe I should post in the "Paraphenalia" thread, but does anyone have a sense of what's a fair price for such an item? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VAGentleman Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I went by one of my regular haunts just to see if they had anything new, and got talking to one of their staff who seemed quite knowledgable. He said they'll be having a store select EC12 coming in soon - he was part of the selection process and was rather geeked about it. Will have to try it out.Speaking of store selections, I picked up an ER10 at another one of my stops. The guy told me they had the barrel itself for sale, nice logo burned into the side, etc. They wanted $200, but I'm almost certain they'd take less. I'm somewhat interested - might be a fun sipping table to put on the back deck, although that would mean I'd have to buy a couple of stools to sit next to it. Maybe I should post in the "Paraphenalia" thread, but does anyone have a sense of what's a fair price for such an item? If they're finished and shellacked I've seen the go from $200-400. Not finished between $50-100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HighHorse Posted November 30, 2013 Share Posted November 30, 2013 Sorry I missed out on this thread. Those are some nice words for our Tallahassee picks. I'm on the barrel selection team .. one of a half dozen or so that makes the trip twice a year. Most of us do not work for Market Square but we're great friends with the owner and we spend (as Squire noted) regular cigar porch nights there. He is also the co-owner of The Lounge adjacent and they feature all of our barrel selections. I know that we pick good bourbons and ryes. These guys have amazing palates and the distillers and distributors are with us often and they think enough of our palates to bring samples of not-yet-released pours. They get an honest opinion and they respect that. Jim .. who runs the joint .. insists we call 'em like we taste 'em.Regarding the Buffalo Trace .. we actually picked 18 barrels last April. We requested that the top six of our picks be bottled as 750's and they mistakenly bottled them as 1.75's. Jim had planned offering a six-pack of our top six picks. So .. those handles are the best (in our opinion) of our 18. All are as good as or better than the shelf selection. We spent some time with that the night before we did the tasting.Our goal is simple .. find a barrel or barrels that are notably better than the shelf version. If you can't do that .. why do it at all? Surely Chuck is right that barrels that don't make the pick simply go into production of their regular product.The barrels selected by the distillery are barrels they have tasted over time (they do this as a matter of regular business anyway) and know them to be in the profile. Our team has little problem finding great bourbon in what they offer us. From time to time .. rarely .. we don't .. and when we don't .. we pass. It keeps everybody honest.Our team does not talk during the tasting process. We score on a like scale .. and then put the scores down. The unanimity is amazing.MSL does now add a few bucks .. not much at all .. for the barrel selections. It's little to pay for a hand picked barrel from a team that spares no expense spending days in Kentucky doing this kind of hard work. I mean .. Lordy .. how many people would even want to do this kind of grueling hard work?! :shocked:Sometimes samples are sent during our non-visiting months. The same care is taken with these as when at the distillery. Every distillery barrel program is a little different. They are very generous with their time and effort to help us achieve our goals. \I really encourage you to try barrel picks where you can. If you like what the retailer is presenting you with .. you know you've found a good source.Our bottles have all of the barrel information on it in a special tag we put on every bottle.Again .. thanks for the kind words. Will pass along. And I echoe Steve's (Sailor's) invite. Let us know when you're coming and share an evening on the Porch with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suntour Posted November 30, 2013 Share Posted November 30, 2013 (edited) Thanks for that post, I love any and all insights into this process.I agree with supporting your favorite liquor store's selected picks. I will buy a store-pick of bottles I've had multiple times over new to me things simply because some of the picks have been so impressive. I've mentioned before buying a hand-picked Blanton's that was one of the best whiskies I've had, then nearly spitting out a regular Blanton's at a bar swearing it wasn't what it was supposed to be.I would also happily pay a few extra dollars for the privilege. I really wish our shop would do an OWA or W12 selection. I really also like seeing how a whiskey could or should be. I've never really liked Eagle Rare 10 but tasting a store-selection really made me "get it". Edited November 30, 2013 by suntour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannabis Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 I am enamored with the private selection trend. It is better than limited edition to me. You get to taste a variant flavor profile of a product and maybe it reveal s something about that stores tastes and no wild mark up due to profiteers I am hoping there is a resource that would help to find stores and such that do private selection so as to more easily find them. Currently ive only found private selections by chance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restaurant man Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 I am enamored with the private selection trend. It is better than limited edition to me. You get to taste a variant flavor profile of a product and maybe it reveal s something about that stores tastes and no wild mark up due to profiteers I am hoping there is a resource that would help to find stores and such that do private selection so as to more easily find them. Currently ive only found private selections by chance 1. Email distributors or distilleries. They can probably tell you. 2. Ask people here who may live near you 3. Drive around. Ask questions 4. Try to find out if there's a distributor/supplier rep in your area and get his number (liquor store manager can tell you) These points should help you. Happy hunting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramblinman Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 1. Email distributors or distilleries. They can probably tell you.2. Ask people here who may live near you 3. Drive around. Ask questions 4. Try to find out if there's a distributor/supplier rep in your area and get his number (liquor store manager can tell you) These points should help you. Happy hunting Curious Restaurant man, do you think the barrel selection is going to bleed over into the restaurant space or is the commitment/inventory requirements for it just too much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerlam92 Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 It really does come down to who does the selecting, doesn't it. Agreed, nothing else matters as much. I only select the main person who is doing the selection. Also, some is only selecting base on three samples they received which to me is again not very meaningful. Dickel 9 years was like that. They gave the liquor store three specific barrel samples then you decide. The box it came in is nice but who cares. 4R seems much more involve and elaborate. There's a YouTube video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theglobalguy Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Give the Diageo boys credit, that's a heck of a branding effort. If you move the product up market, guess it doesn't hurt to upgrade from the usual FedEx box with loose bottles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
393foureyedfox Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 that is a cool looking Dickel box, Id love to have even just the empty box. That said, Id think if i wanted to pick a barrel, Id want more than three to choose from, like, at least 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts