Liquor Store "Huh?" Moments

[fishnbowljoe]

14 minutes ago, flahute said:

Did you tell her that much of what's in Bulleit these days is Four Roses? I can see her head exploding.

I thought Brown Forman was currently supplying distillate to Bulleit?
 

Biba! Joe

[Mattk]

20 minutes ago, flahute said:

Did you tell her that much of what's in Bulleit these days is Four Roses? I can see her head exploding.

Yeah, she got really angry and showed me photos of her trip to bulleit.

[Mattk]

2 minutes ago, fishnbowljoe said:

 

I actually went with the bulleit has barrels from pretty much everyone. She got extra annoyed when I showed her the rye is labeled distilled in Indiana.

[flahute]

49 minutes ago, fishnbowljoe said:

I thought Brown Forman was currently supplying distillate to Bulleit?
 

Biba! Joe

They are as is Barton, Beam, and who knows who else. I believe it's still majority Four Roses as they had half of the 4R capacity prior to the contract ending.

[flahute]

43 minutes ago, Mattk said:

I actually went with the bulleit has barrels from pretty much everyone. She got extra annoyed when I showed her the rye is labeled distilled in Indiana.

Ha! I was at a Bulleit event some years back and watched Tom Bulleit refer to "our distillery in Indiana" and about spit my drink out.

[0895]

4 hours ago, flahute said:

as they had half of the 4R capacity prior to the contract ending.

This is just really sad…

[smokinjoe]

6 minutes ago, 0895 said:

This is just really sad…

How come?

[0895]

3 hours ago, smokinjoe said:

How come?

Partly because I think (in theory) 4R would be better stocked right now with available barrel picks, perhaps both in qty. and availability of all recipes.

 

Also, it makes me cringe a bit thinking about how much good 4R bourbon was dumped into batches of Bulleit.  Not that I have anything specific against Bulleit.  I just enjoy 4R more.

 

Think about an operation the size of 4R.

Half of their production is going to Bulleit?  Just seems like not the best use of their resources.

What do I know though.

[mal00768]

11 hours ago, 0895 said:

Partly because I think (in theory) 4R would be better stocked right now with available barrel picks, perhaps both in qty. and availability of all recipes.

 

Also, it makes me cringe a bit thinking about how much good 4R bourbon was dumped into batches of Bulleit.  Not that I have anything specific against Bulleit.  I just enjoy 4R more.

 

Think about an operation the size of 4R.

Half of their production is going to Bulleit?  Just seems like not the best use of their resources.

What do I know though.

All those bottles of 10-12 year old age state Bulleit might be pretty great. But I'd much rather see that same bourbon in a 4R bottle. Just the branding is way nicer.

[Jazzhead]

The recent Bulleit single barrels,  which I've assumed without knowing contain 4R distillate, taste pretty darn great.   But I don't disagree that I'd rather have bought the same juice with a 4R label,  so the pedigree of the distillate would be known without question.

[fosmith]

Yesterday I picked up this bottle - a 15yr cask strength single barrel Dickel store pick from K&L.  What made me say "huh" was the bottle number, 372.  With about five 750ml bottles per gallon and a 53 gallon barrel, they can get, at most, around 265 bottles from a barrel and that's if there's no angel's share.  So how did they get to 372?  And the hang tag for the store pick states that the barrel (~17yo) yielded only 84 bottles.  Maybe they started counting at 300?  But why even put a bottle number on the label if it's not the actual bottle number.  So, something doesn't add up here...

[Bob_Loblaw]

19 hours ago, fosmith said:

Yesterday I picked up this bottle - a 15yr cask strength single barrel Dickel store pick from K&L.  What made me say "huh" was the bottle number, 372.  With about five 750ml bottles per gallon and a 53 gallon barrel, they can get, at most, around 265 bottles from a barrel and that's if there's no angel's share.  So how did they get to 372?  And the hang tag for the store pick states that the barrel (~17yo) yielded only 84 bottles.  Maybe they started counting at 300?  But why even put a bottle number on the label if it's not the actual bottle number.  So, something doesn't add up here...

That is curious.  Did the store have other bottles that you could compare the numbers to?  If they are all 372 then it could maybe be the barrel number and the label is just formatted poorly?  You could email Dickel and see if they can shed any light on the situation . . .

[TunnelTiger]

3 minutes ago, Bob_Loblaw said:

That is curious.  Did the store have other bottles that you could compare the numbers to?  If they are all 372 then it could maybe be the barrel number and the label is just formatted poorly?  You could email Dickel and see if they can shed any light on the situation . . .

Yes, we need a follow up on this.

[fosmith]

22 hours ago, Bob_Loblaw said:

That is curious.  Did the store have other bottles that you could compare the numbers to?  If they are all 372 then it could maybe be the barrel number and the label is just formatted poorly?  You could email Dickel and see if they can shed any light on the situation . . .

I didn't pick it off the shelf.  I ordered it online and picked it (and a few other items) up from will call at the San Francisco store.  I didn't notice this until I got home.  Unfortunately, there's no way to call the store. They have three locations so all calls go to a customer service call center.  I don't believe 372 could be the barrel number.  There's a hang tag on the bottle that shows the barrel number to be 04B18-1579.  I didn't think about emailing Dickel.  I'll look into that. 

[Clueby]

@0895 gets to listen to me complain some more.  

 

I went to a paid ($50 plus tax!) BT tasting at a local store today.  You got 5 tastes of different expressions.  One was SUPPOSED to be a WFP "Single Barrel Select" and even had a pic with a sticker on it.  (see below for a snip from their post)  It was pretty much the only reason I even went to the tasting since I hoped they had gotten their store pick in and might be releasing the bottles at the event or at least a lottery for it or some other bottles. When I asked, the young gentleman doing the pouring said they did have a 2nd bottle of WFP and it was indeed a store pick bottle but they would only open if if they ran out of the first bottle (which they didn't...see below re: pour size).  He said they did not get a store pick barrel in and then proceeded to tell me that Buffalo Trace has suspended the store pick program and is only doing "market" selections where an entire metro area gets a barrel (for example...a "The Lou" pick for St. Louis) and all the local retailers get a few bottles each.   No bottles were available to purchase/lottery.

The "pours" I got were less than 1/2 oz ea.  I would guess that all 5 pours added up to maybe just over 1oz.  On top of that, it was basically just one guy at at table pouring for each person in line and each person had a punchcard that he checked off as you got a pour of each expression.  There were about 40 people in attendance so as soon as you got a pour you went back to the end of the line to wait for your next pour. By the time I had done that a couple times I learned and grabbed a second glass so I could get 2 of the expressions at once.  All in all pretty disappointing and a waste of time and money.  I believe they even ran out of CEHT before everyone was able to have a sample.

I mentioned it to the manager downstairs and he said..."oh they must have just used the wrong picture".  I pointed out that the ad for the event clearly stated "Single Barrel Select".  Oh well.  Most of the people in attendance seemed to have never tried any of the offered expressions before and were oohing and aahing and taking pics.

For what its worth, RHF was the clear winner of the night.  The ETL was actually surprisingly good and was probably my 2nd favorite followed by the WFP.  The CEHT was fine if a bit heavy on the corn in the SBS.  Blanton's was just OK.

 

[0895]

Suddenly my work team building meeting day looks like an exponentially better time.  I got two good meals and some beer.

 

Sorry this store’s tastings have become so lame.  They used to be a good time.

[hughewil]

11 hours ago, Clueby said:

@0895 gets to listen to me complain some more.  

 

I went to a paid ($50 plus tax!) BT tasting at a local store today.  You got 5 tastes of different expressions.  One was SUPPOSED to be a WFP "Single Barrel Select" and even had a pic with a sticker on it.  (see below for a snip from their post)  It was pretty much the only reason I even went to the tasting since I hoped they had gotten their store pick in and might be releasing the bottles at the event or at least a lottery for it or some other bottles. When I asked, the young gentleman doing the pouring said they did have a 2nd bottle of WFP and it was indeed a store pick bottle but they would only open if if they ran out of the first bottle (which they didn't...see below re: pour size).  He said they did not get a store pick barrel in and then proceeded to tell me that Buffalo Trace has suspended the store pick program and is only doing "market" selections where an entire metro area gets a barrel (for example...a "The Lou" pick for St. Louis) and all the local retailers get a few bottles each.   No bottles were available to purchase/lottery.

The "pours" I got were less than 1/2 oz ea.  I would guess that all 5 pours added up to maybe just over 1oz.  On top of that, it was basically just one guy at at table pouring for each person in line and each person had a punchcard that he checked off as you got a pour of each expression.  There were about 40 people in attendance so as soon as you got a pour you went back to the end of the line to wait for your next pour. By the time I had done that a couple times I learned and grabbed a second glass so I could get 2 of the expressions at once.  All in all pretty disappointing and a waste of time and money.  I believe they even ran out of CEHT before everyone was able to have a sample.

I mentioned it to the manager downstairs and he said..."oh they must have just used the wrong picture".  I pointed out that the ad for the event clearly stated "Single Barrel Select".  Oh well.  Most of the people in attendance seemed to have never tried any of the offered expressions before and were oohing and aahing and taking pics.

For what its worth, RHF was the clear winner of the night.  The ETL was actually surprisingly good and was probably my 2nd favorite followed by the WFP.  The CEHT was fine if a bit heavy on the corn in the SBS.  Blanton's was just OK.

 

sounds like an awful experience.

[PaulO]

On 6/15/2022 at 9:02 PM, Clueby said:

@0895 gets to listen to me complain some more.  

 

I went to a paid ($50 plus tax!) BT tasting at a local store today.  You got 5 tastes of different expressions.  One was SUPPOSED to be a WFP "Single Barrel Select" and even had a pic with a sticker on it.  (see below for a snip from their post)  It was pretty much the only reason I even went to the tasting since I hoped they had gotten their store pick in and might be releasing the bottles at the event or at least a lottery for it or some other bottles. When I asked, the young gentleman doing the pouring said they did have a 2nd bottle of WFP and it was indeed a store pick bottle but they would only open if if they ran out of the first bottle (which they didn't...see below re: pour size).  He said they did not get a store pick barrel in and then proceeded to tell me that Buffalo Trace has suspended the store pick program and is only doing "market" selections where an entire metro area gets a barrel (for example...a "The Lou" pick for St. Louis) and all the local retailers get a few bottles each.   No bottles were available to purchase/lottery.

The "pours" I got were less than 1/2 oz ea.  I would guess that all 5 pours added up to maybe just over 1oz.  On top of that, it was basically just one guy at at table pouring for each person in line and each person had a punchcard that he checked off as you got a pour of each expression.  There were about 40 people in attendance so as soon as you got a pour you went back to the end of the line to wait for your next pour. By the time I had done that a couple times I learned and grabbed a second glass so I could get 2 of the expressions at once.  All in all pretty disappointing and a waste of time and money.  I believe they even ran out of CEHT before everyone was able to have a sample.

I mentioned it to the manager downstairs and he said..."oh they must have just used the wrong picture".  I pointed out that the ad for the event clearly stated "Single Barrel Select".  Oh well.  Most of the people in attendance seemed to have never tried any of the offered expressions before and were oohing and aahing and taking pics.

For what its worth, RHF was the clear winner of the night.  The ETL was actually surprisingly good and was probably my 2nd favorite followed by the WFP.  The CEHT was fine if a bit heavy on the corn in the SBS.  Blanton's was just OK.

 

After you got treated like Oliver Twist did they have bottles for purchase, or sent home empty handed.

Regardless, seems pretty lame on their part.

Fishnbowljoe has claimed a lot of the negativity directed at the Trace is caused by distributors and retailers.  In this case - yes.

[Clueby]

21 minutes ago, PaulO said:

did they have bottles for purchase, or sent home empty handed.

No bottles for purchase as part of the event. I did purchase a regular BT off the shelf before the event started.  I wouldn't have if I had waited till aftwrwards.

[mbroo5880i]

I saw this on one of the top retailers in Indiana's website.  The product details seems like a pretty accurate description of the product.  Apparently it came from some store in Slovenia.  The product?  Ezra Brooks Cask Strength.

 

Description:

This bourbon presents caramel and vanilla with hints of spice and chocolate for a smooth, warm finish. Intense and smokey, it'll warm you right to your toes.

 

Product Details

Type Spirits

Subtype Bourbon

Country Slovenia

Region Štore

[jvd99]

This chalkboard sign was amusing and the notice to the bourbon hunters seemed pretty honest, but not sure I believe they're putting PVW out on the tasting bar and not selling for 10x markup.

 

 

[PaulO]

I'm amused whenever someone in front of me asks for any of that stuff.  For a moment, they get to be "that guy".  

[0895]

2 hours ago, PaulO said:

I'm amused whenever someone in front of me asks for any of that stuff.  For a moment, they get to be "that guy".  

I’d wager they’re always “that guy”.

[kcgumbohead]

12 hours ago, PaulO said:

I'm amused whenever someone in front of me asks for any of that stuff.  For a moment, they get to be "that guy".  

Well, sometimes you venture into a store and the pricing is way out of whack across the board, I mean to the high side. When an enthusiastic clerk inquires what can they me find, I get a lot of pleasure throwing out a request for that "pappy" bourbon everyone is so excited about. 

[BogusOwnz]

On 3/6/2023 at 9:29 AM, jvd99 said:

This chalkboard sign was amusing and the notice to the bourbon hunters seemed pretty honest, but not sure I believe they're putting PVW out on the tasting bar and not selling for 10x markup.

 

 

 Gold Eagle, they aren't lying. The tasting bar rarely has anything marked up, to badly. Looks like they have Weller 12 for $9 a pour.