suntour Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 "So John J Bourbon you think it should be a $50 bottle but you suggest at the 89.99 mark it's better to buy this than an orphan barrel at the same price? I paid $75 for my blood oath so looks like I did OK." e"I would like one if anyone can help, please." I love posting on Bourbon Exchange on Facebook because it makes me feel smarter. Those people are sadistic, idiotic, overpayed, or some combination of those. To watch that video and buy this product...you're not my kind of person... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Black Tot Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Agree. If the above product and those quoted reactions are going on, (and I'm seeing them too), this bubble is on very shaky ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justanuthercap Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 I'm stepping out on a ledge here and kind of outing my nerd/geek side, but what we are seeing here is completely a flipper/collector driven market, in my humble opinion.This is EXACTLY how things went with the comic book boom in the early 90's. They made so many limited editions and alternate versions simply for the collectors/flippers market that demand and prices skyrocketed on MANUFACTURED COLLECTIBLES! We saw a surge of new comic companies that started at that time and they went bust the minute the bubble burst, and even the big two companies of Marvel and DC almost went out of businessecause they had driven away their loyal base customers. The same pattern applies to almost all COLLECTIBLES. And that is exactly what we are seeing in the bourbon biz right now. These release are designed to be exremely limited to drive up the hype, and the prices which spills over into the regular products. Eventually, the flippers start losing money when the bandwagon starts to get deserted and the regular consumer base is left (granted it will probably be slightly bigger as some of the johhny come latelys will have discovered that "hey, this stuff is actually really good". But it will happen, and very quickly once it actually starts, because once the flippers start moving on to the next thing people suddenly realize that their Pappy they paid $1500 a bottle for is now back to being worth what it should have been in the first place.Hope I didn't offend anyone by calling bourbon a "collectible", but that really is what I'm seeing here.Okay, nerd/geek mode off... back to your regularly scheduled programming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miller542 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 what we are seeing here is completely a flipper/collector driven market, in my humble opinion.agree, comics, beanie babies, housing, etc. which is what I meant when I said:Every market that gets over-heated eventually comes back to realityCured Oak to me is not evidence of the continued rise but rather another event that will pull another leg from under the boom. It will be yet another example of what turns the average person off to the whole thing. The more people who turn away and look elsewhere, the quicker the house of cards falls down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBoldBully Posted March 31, 2015 Author Share Posted March 31, 2015 "Blood Oath" certainly does strike me as a sign we must living in the end times of a bubble, although maybe not one as easy to analyze as pure collectibles or even the housing market. Meanwhile, I will stock up on glut comics (which I assume have lots more pages or better artwork than advertised). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThirstyinOhio Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 (edited) I think it's a mistake to look at the increased sales of mid-shelf and premium bourbon brands, and the resulting shortages, and the fervor over limited releases in the same scope. I think it's also a mistake to lump bourbon in with fad consumables such as Beanie Babies and comic books. I believe that there will be a cooling off on the number of consumers buying up many of our the mid-shelf/premium brands but the market for them will remain much higher than what it ever was even 10 years ago. The good news is that distilleries will be able to compensate production to meet this demand in time, but its not nearly as easy to increase the supply of long aged whiskey without risking the corruption of quality. As to equating limited editions to beanie babies or comic books there is a huge difference. It can take 15 years or even longer to produce many of these whiskies and during this time they must be kept in very controlled environments. You can't simply fill up a rack house from top to bottom and throw away the key for 15 years and expect to come back to a rack house filled with perfect 15 year old whiskey. If this was beanie babies or comic books, you can easily ramp up production in extremely short amounts of time to flood the market to meet the demand almost instantly. There was no inherit limit to production as there is with whiskey. You want to compare comic books? They sold 3 million copies of Superman #75 in one day when it was released back in the early 90s. Compare that to even "large" releases of many limited edition whiskies and we are looking at what, 10,000 to 20,000 bottles per release? The supply is so far behind demand it may never catch up again for many of these whiskies that use to just sit on the shelf. Now with all that said, that doesn't mean all so called limited releases will be hard to find and many aren't hard to find now. You can still find WRMC Rye sets collecting dust and many of the Orphan barrels are sticking around much longer. As I've mentioned before, I think the only real comparison you can make to any other boom is the wine boom that happened here in the US. Edited March 31, 2015 by ThirstyinOhio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chooch714 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 From what I see going on with prices and supply issues, the boom is still going strong. That said, it really doesn't affect me all that much. I am not a collector or hoarder. I simply buy what I drink and usually have 8 - 12 open bottles of bourbon that I like at any given time. I, fortunately, find a lot to like on the middle to lower shelves. Much of what is in short supply or only available on the secondary market are products I would most likely not purchase at MSRP except in instances of special gifts or celebrations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boneuphtoner Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Based on perusing the secondary markets, the boom is stronger than ever, but it hardly matters to me at all. I have a grand total of 5 bourbons that some people might think are collectible/limited edition (3 Parker's Heritage and a couple of HH gift shop offerings I really like). As long as Dant BIB, Kirkland's, WT101, KCSB, etc. are readily available, I will be content. The boom's impact on the middle shelf has also thankfully left me completely unaffected so far, as I'm not a huge fan of Weller 12 or ETL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark fleetwood Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 IF international sales ratchet up (looking at you China and India), won't that continue the overall boom, and given their sheer magnitude won't those countries thirst swamp what's in barrels now and how much distilleries can make each year now? 2.5 billion people, what % will become bourbon drinkers? wouldn't take a lot to burn through the 5 million barrels in storage now, would it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris m Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 In 2012 Jim Rutledge said 90-95% of Four Roses market was outside the US. I'm not sure how other big brands compare to that percentage (if anyone has any info I'd love to see it), but we're already giving away a lot of our whiskey...Can't we just send all our Blood Oath abroad? Or are their palates too discerning? source: http://spiritsjournal.klwines.com/klwinescom-spirits-blog/2012/10/1/kl-spirits-journal-podcast-22-jim-rutledge.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Black Tot Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Ask anyone who travels - apart from a few European Union nations and Japan, who give us far more premium spirits than we give them (the idea that "we give it away" must take into account that they are "giving theirs away" too, to us), the only US whiskeys you see in foreign countries are Jim Beam White and Jack.I don't think we're at risk of all the distilleries suddenly rationing the US out of all their best products so that the best stuff can be sent abroad. The expectations that the world will explode into bourbon connoisseurship are certainly exaggerated. Beam and Jack are going to be loving it, though. Woodford and Maker's are trying.I crew change in Miri, Malaysia in a few days. I'll be celebrating with a JBW - not necessarily by choice, but it will do the job.People cite wealthy, status-seeking Asians running up the Bordeaux market over the last decade. But if they get bigger into brown spirits, I think it's going to be the status whisky they go for - the Scottish malts or else Japan's award winning whiskys. Also, reports are that the Asian economy is stalled (cited as a partial cause of the current oil glut). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFerguson Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Recent banter wants to make me pull out my copies of the "death of superman" series. They may not be worth something, but they were fun back in the day. Fact is the attention is focused on the market now, and in time, will move away. It's a cycle. And when it things out, we'll be back to every limited bottle sitting on the shelf, collecting dust, like in years past, until the next cycle rears up. History repeats. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Black Tot Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 All the talk of hipsters fighting over LEs is great, but that's still ignoring the situation that there are probably more on premise accounts that want these LEs than supply, .Just had a chat with a store owner in Texas who said that the Houston area allocation is going entirely to bars.Possibly just a distributor lie, but if not this certainly supports your point.I'm also giving up buying limited pours in bars. It's no public service to be allowed to pay more than twice secondary (which I've also now given up, ha!) just to fill their coffers to head us off at the pass on the next one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koRn Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 The amount of new people joining bourbon pages on fb, and posting shots of worthless bottles asking what it is, and oh my please tell me my new 50 dollar bottle is actually worth 500. Is sickening, it's called Google if you want to know what it is. I'd say the boom is still alive and well and still climbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishad Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 The amount of new people joining bourbon pages on fb, and posting shots of worthless bottles asking what it is, and oh my please tell me my new 50 dollar bottle is actually worth 500. Is sickening, it's called Google if you want to know what it is. I'd say the boom is still alive and well and still climbing.The secondary market makes no sense to me. I see people selling unexciting bottles at insane prices because they are "rare", I can't believe people are actually spending that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suntour Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 To me that phenomenon shows fatigue in the market, and the dwindling supply of "it" bottles makes the cycle seem a little sputtering. Cured Oak is obviously in opposition to this trend.When I saw a picture from inside a liquor store of Heaven Hill Cabin Still from the 00s being posted "For Sippin'" I knew there were just too many uninformed players in that market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suntour Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 The Orphan Barrels are an interesting part of this.I think people are wising up to the fact that the juice is uninspired at best, and the pricing scheme seems to cut both ways: Nobody is flipping these for 3x retail, but the price and age is also making people be like "$75 for a 15 year old product? What a bargain!" We're still a ways away from the insanity ending because I just read a thread of people talking about Luxco's Orphan Barrel rip-off and they were like "It was pretty good for $80"...uh, you know that's just Old Ezra and Rebel Yell vatted up in another bottle, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squire Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 "It was pretty good for $80"...uh, you know that's just Old Ezra and Rebel Yell vatted up in another bottle, right?Doubtful but knowledge isn't important when the goal is to brag about how much you routinely pay for whisky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorvallisCracker Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Higher price makes for greater exclusivity, which, for mentalities of a certain type, confers superiority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koRn Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 The secondary market feeds itself. New yuppies joining who think any bottle is magic....And then paying extreme prices for it....just saw baby saz posted for 80 shipped. It's a 26 dollar bottle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 The Orphan Barrels are an interesting part of this.I think people are wising up to the fact that the juice is uninspired at best, and the pricing scheme seems to cut both ways: Nobody is flipping these for 3x retail, but the price and age is also making people be like "$75 for a 15 year old product? What a bargain!" We're still a ways away from the insanity ending because I just read a thread of people talking about Luxco's Orphan Barrel rip-off and they were like "It was pretty good for $80"...uh, you know that's just Old Ezra and Rebel Yell vatted up in another bottle, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokinjoe Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 ...New yuppies joining who think any bottle is magic...And then paying extreme prices for it... First it was the hipsters, now it's the "yuppies" who are to blame? Well slugger, I'll give these "yuppies" credit if they get the bottle but don't then consult their girlfriend for permission on when to open it. I heard that happens, sometimes... BTW, the Stagg Jr. is pretty good...look forward to hearing your opinion when she lets you try it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koRn Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Oh I'm sorry I like to keep my word to people I care about. You should try it, it's called integrity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justanuthercap Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Higher price makes for greater exclusivity, which, for mentalities of a certain type, confers superiority.I think this sums up the entire thing nicely. It all seems to boil down to some kind of higher perceived status combined with todays rampant "look at me" syndrome. I think none of this would bother me one bit if I couldn't find some bottlings as long as the majority of new afficianados were buying to enjoy the juice inside. Thats just not what seems to be going on and that's kind of sad.How about just calling them "trendies"? That nickname would always apply no matter what generation they originated from.I like this, TRENDIES is now added to my vocabulary. You learn something new everyday on SB! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokinjoe Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Oh I'm sorry I like to keep my word to people I care about. You should try it, it's called integrity. OK! So now, we both have something to work on! :toast: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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