Sam's Report

[cowdery]

A visit to Sam's is always interesting. I was pressed for time yesterday and couldn't linger, but I did notice that they have cleared out all of the Canadian whiskies from the right end of the North American whiskey shelf, presumably to make more room for whiskies from the United States. I didn't see where they put the Canadians. Who cares? It might not be all boon, though. The one thing now in that space was a few facings of Seagrams 7 Crown, although if they are giving the U.S. blends their own section, that's just as well.

It seems I got their last bottle of the Ezra B 15-year-old. The only other bottles of Ezra B on the shelf were the new 12-year-olds.

Following Gary Gillman's tip I picked up some of the Bottled-in-Bond Rittenhouse Rye. Like Gary, I couldn't resist trying it immediately. It's good, and a value at $12.99.

I also picked up a liter of Old Grand-Dad bond. Sam's is interesting in carrying liters of brands that have them. It used to be, and maybe still is, that bar owners who couldn't get credit or had some other problem with buying from the proper distributors would buy their bar stock at Sam's. In some cases it was guys who were running so tight that when the night got going and they got a few bucks in the till, they would run down to Sam's and pick up a few more bottles. (Bars typically use liter bottles. By the way, it's against the law for bars to buy their liquor in retail stores.)

Sam's also now has large flat panel TV screens throughout the store, running advertising. They kept repeating an ad for Skyy Vodka touting its 'purity' and how it contains fewer 'impurities' than any other vodka. Of course, what is impurity to one person is taste to another. I guess I'm just in favor of impurity in all things.

Finally, I noticed some fellow shoppers, two guys, probably late 20s or early 30s, obviously buying for a party. In their cart: a 1.75 L of Capt. Morgan Rum, to which they added a 1.75 L of Jack Daniel's, a 1.75 L of Maker's Mark and a 1.75 L of Skyy Vodka.