Elmer T. Lee

[t44tq]

I am fairly certain the CEHT bourbons are generally mashbill #1, not #2.

But otherwise I agree. I'm fine with ETL, but the hype is a little offputting.

You're right- CEHT is mashbill #1, thank you for the correction. Same as GTS, Stagg Jr. and BT? I get the BT products mixed up.

[dcbt]

You're right- CEHT is mashbill #1, thank you for the correction. Same as GTS, Stagg Jr. and BT? I get the BT products mixed up.

Yes, those are all the same mash bill (#1).

[flahute]

The appeal of ETL is the quality and flavor for the price (until recently in some markets). Hence the "hype". Everyone wants quality at a great price. Enough bloggers and magazines mention how great it is and that it's a value, and even more people want it. Combine this with the overall popularity of bourbon and BT's supply issues, and it becomes "in demand" and allocated. Then some stores jack up the price. Now it's not as good a value as before.

I still like it plenty. I like RHF better, but it's a lot more expensive here and it too runs dry for months at a time. It's just how it is these days.

[Flyfish]

I agree. It's so smooth and plus it's $28-$35. RHF is $60 now and Taylor can be way over that. Plus it's Boyd Crowder's favorite drink.

[kjbeggs]

My step-daughter was in Houston over the weekend.

There was a Goody-Goody a few miles away that showed 19 bottles of ETL in stock.

She went to pick a few up for me, and ended up getting the last two.

[BB Slim]

Looks like the last ETL release has made it to Florida. Took the wife and kids to Orlando over the weekend to attend Cirque du Soleil for mothers day. Stopped into the ABC Liquor off Lake Buena Vista drive and they had 5 bottles of ETL on the shelf (now 4). If any of you are visiting Disney this week might still have a chance to grab one.

[Levoosh]

Thanks to those who replied with PM's. Managed to snag a couple of bottles in NJ.

There is no doubt that ETL is nothing special and it does not justify the hype as a limited release, but these days I tend to bunker based on value rather than rarity. I'd prefer to have ample supply of Weller 12, OWA, ETL, FRSB and EC waiting for me in the event that something changes (NAS, rarity, price jack) so I'll know my daily drinker is covered.

[Enoch]

WHat really upsets me is the VA ABC had a special two years ago...ETL 24.99. I got several but would have gotten a whole case had I known how things would go.

[typoerror]

still hasn't made it to new orleans....

[cfelkey]

Any Atlanta SBers have some intel on a Georgia release. I was told April and no one has gotten any (as far as I know). Thanks.

I was in Tower (Piedmont) and Greens on Buford Hwy today, neither store claimed to know anything about when it was being released. The guy at Greens did seem pretty displeased with the gentleman who's been calling about ETL everyday for the past 2 weeks.

There's a guy on r/Bourbon claiming a distributor told him it would hit shelves last week and this week.

[fjr1606]

It has hit a few stores in Metro Atlanta!

[The Black Tot]

My step-daughter was in Houston over the weekend.

There was a Goody-Goody a few miles away that showed 19 bottles of ETL in stock.

She went to pick a few up for me, and ended up getting the last two.

Haha. Since I couldn't be there myself, I'm glad ONE of us got some of the Houston delivery!

[JGriff]

I was in Tower (Piedmont) and Greens on Buford Hwy today, neither store claimed to know anything about when it was being released. The guy at Greens did seem pretty displeased with the gentleman who's been calling about ETL everyday for the past 2 weeks.

There's a guy on r/Bourbon claiming a distributor told him it would hit shelves last week and this week.

I've spoken to the Green's guy and he told me the same thing. He gets multiple calls daily for ETL and W12. Happy hunting.

[JvW]

Drove up I75 just north of Lexington yesterday and stopped to get gas; the liquor store adjacent had one bottle left ($39.99 ouch), but a lucky find...

Jan

[The Black Tot]

Oh well, I suppose this April's release was smaller than we had hoped. That, or there are still too many people building bunker inventories as though it was precious.

I think it helps that they're releasing it twice a year - more regular deliveries helps deal with the hoarding effect. I wish they'd go back to spring and fall releases of Pappy and BTAC for this reason.

This release seemed to get gobbled up fast. Next release (fall) is only 4 months away now. I don't think a lot of us (unless ETL is a daily drinker for you) will get through an entire bottle of ETL in that time frame.

[DonutsNBourbon]

this would be a daily drinker for me if it were more readily available... haven't seen it around these parts since January tho, and never saw it in the fall.

[The Black Tot]

this would be a daily drinker for me if it were more readily available... haven't seen it around these parts since January tho, and never saw it in the fall.

I think your time will come within a year to drink ETL daily.

W12 did the same thing. In Texas, we hit a big panic this winter where it finally was hard to get there. It's back now. There's too many even for the flippers to clear the shelves. Mostly because the margins on said flipping are too low to be worth their while.

Strangely, there's still a lot of ETL coming up on boards being flipped for $50-70 right now. Probably by the next release the margins will be too low for them to care, and the drinkers will get their access back. When secondary cools off, primary recovers. There's too much volume of ETL and W12 released for it ever to get too warmed up.

I'm thinking the Commemorative release not only increased interest in ETL, but it also got bought and saved as a collectible, which probably means that the regular ETL drinkers lost an entire shipment to people's display cabinets, which put ETL drinking supply one big shipment behind. Then the demand spiked due to the interest of what people couldn't get, and the supply gap widened.

While ETL is presently being purchased as fast as it is being released, I still think ETL is being released faster than it is being drunk. In other words, we're at the stage where ETL releases are inflating a bunkering bubble. When the heavy bunkerers reach the point where they say "yeah, 6 is enough", I think it's going to come back to the shelves fast, and stay in regular supply after that.

[jeffrey r]

Black Tot, just for the heck of it, I'll provide a counterpoint to your point. To preface, I'm just a guy who likes bourbon, so I have no official information or anything like that. Just anecdotal evidence.

First, using Weller 12 as an example of a product that is abundant enough to avoid hoarding and flipping, doesn't quite work all that well anywhere other than Texas, apparently. Anecdotally, W12 still seems to be extremely scarce, and extremely sought after, in most parts of the country. I haven't seen a bottle on a shelf in NY/NJ in over a year. Fortunately, my bunker is stocked with W12 from when it was actually minimally available around here, but I would be striking out currently around here otherwise.

Second, with its new-found popularity, I don't necessarily know that ETL is produced in enough quantity to satisfy the current demand. You think that ETL is being produced faster than it is being drunk. I'm not so sure that ETL is going to flood the market anytime soon, where supplies continually get replenished when stock runs low. I just don't know that there is enough of it to go around right now and be in steady supply, or to actually sit on shelves for any appreciable periods of time.

In any event, time will tell, and this is just another interesting situation to monitor with the current boom.

[polish.bourbon]

I sure, sure hope you're right about all that. What is "enough" in a bunker for most people I wonder? At 5, I had better find the next bottle on a very good sale in order to stock up, and even then, I'm only likely to get 1 or maybe 2 more.

I think your time will come within a year to drink ETL daily.

W12 did the same thing. In Texas, we hit a big panic this winter where it finally was hard to get there. It's back now. There's too many even for the flippers to clear the shelves. Mostly because the margins on said flipping are too low to be worth their while.

Strangely, there's still a lot of ETL coming up on boards being flipped for $50-70 right now. Probably by the next release the margins will be too low for them to care, and the drinkers will get their access back. When secondary cools off, primary recovers. There's too much volume of ETL and W12 released for it ever to get too warmed up.

I'm thinking the Commemorative release not only increased interest in ETL, but it also got bought and saved as a collectible, which probably means that the regular ETL drinkers lost an entire shipment to people's display cabinets, which put ETL drinking supply one big shipment behind. Then the demand spiked due to the interest of what people couldn't get, and the supply gap widened.

While ETL is presently being purchased as fast as it is being released, I still think ETL is being released faster than it is being drunk. In other words, we're at the stage where ETL releases are inflating a bunkering bubble. When the heavy bunkerers reach the point where they say "yeah, 6 is enough", I think it's going to come back to the shelves fast, and stay in regular supply after that.

[Levoosh]

Further to the Weller 12 analogy, we had approximately 1400 bottles land in Ontario for our once a year release on April 15. There are now approximately 25 bottles left in the province one month later. That's some rapid movement.

ETL hasn't been here in over a year and probably aint coming back even with the twice a year releases, so not exactly plentiful...

[T Comp]

How did the author of this article on the Dutch Tulip Bubble of 1637, written by her in March of 2006, know about Bourbon in 2015 :cool:. Especially when it applies to now the mania regarding enjoyable, pleasant but certainly not rare, special or much beyond average bourbons of ETL or W 12.

"Looking back through time it’s easy to laugh at the foolish Dutch, paying such prices for simple tulip bulbs, but an economic bubble was nothing new even then. We’re still doing the same sorts of things today. Human beings have always been prone to want things that are difficult to get, especially if everyone else seems to be doing it. Nutty behavior becomes commonplace when enough people are following along. It’s only afterwards that we stand back and shake our heads and wonder what came over us."

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-dutch-tulip-bubble-of-1637/

[The Black Tot]

Good points guys.

I'm just an armchair analyst too - so don't take me too seriously - I'm just expressing my gut feelings for fun. It's definitely interesting and fun to watch and comment on.

I'd say that a lot of bourbons seem to have their target markets. ECBP sits on shelves in Washington, for example, but I couldn't get it without kind assistance in Texas to save my life. So I think we have to look at the core market areas to determine the first signs of a supply recovery. If it disappears in the market it's supposed to be plentiful, that's telling, and it seems to recover there first as well.

It's not only ETL that's being produced faster than it's being drunk, it's all mid-high shelf bourbon in general. There appears to be a whole subculture of bunkering that has been expanding over the last while. The reserves have moved from store shelves to people's living rooms. But bunkers do reach a point where people say "yeah, this is too much". What is that level? It's different for every person, but I've been saying for a while there are a wave of wives just waiting to put their feet down, haha.

I know the market for ETL consumption has expanded, but it's also expanding in a lot of other directions at the same time. The new ETL drinkers are also finding other new bottles all the time. The fad is going to taper off as other daily drinkers are found.

That's why I've still got good feelings about ETL catching up to demand in markets where it traditionally was found. In markets where it was always lean, yeah, it will probably stay tough. But lean areas are a very late indicator of a supply recovery.

[The Black Tot]

Oh, and I come from Ontario. You can't use Ontario as an indicator of almost anything, since there are way more factors at play in that scenario than BT's production figures.

[Hop]

Saw this behind the counter in a SC store today. One bottle @ $38.99. While I was looking it sold. Not to me. Don't take that to mean I don't like it because I love ETL but all of mine was bought well below that price.

[CaskStrength77]

Oh well, I suppose this April's release was smaller than we had hoped. That, or there are still too many people building bunker inventories as though it was precious.

I think it helps that they're releasing it twice a year - more regular deliveries helps deal with the hoarding effect. I wish they'd go back to spring and fall releases of Pappy and BTAC for this reason.

This release seemed to get gobbled up fast. Next release (fall) is only 4 months away now. I don't think a lot of us (unless ETL is a daily drinker for you) will get through an entire bottle of ETL in that time frame.

Spec's Smith Street got a case or two, and the manager was pumping it up like a limited release. The staff got some, and they put the rest in the "back." They were definitely trying to make it seem like a very limited release.