Buffalo Trace - Experimental Collection

[CrispyCritter]

My $0.02:

I had no illusions that I'd ever see a bottle of this on the shelf. I was lucky that I even managed to score two bottles of Sazerac 18, after all - it was gone from the Chicago area in a the blink of an eye, and it wasn't as rare as the XC! My remaining bottle of Saz 18 won't be opened until the next release.

If I would lay blame anywhere regarding the XC's lack of availability, it would be squarely on our goofy liquor regulations, which seem to be designed to benefit the middlemen more than anything else. I heartily applaud that BT at least made the effort to release it - as others have mentioned, they could have just as easily kept a few sample bottles and dumped the remainder - or redistilled it into vodka. :bigeyes:

Let's hope that any or all of these experiments were successful enough that we'll eventually see a real release - I'm especially intrigued by the French oak.

Packaging idea: two 375 ml bottles, same distillation, one American oak, one French oak, same age, same warehouse, one package.

[ProofPositive]

I guess if you wanted to try the stuff and wanted to pay to do it....

http://cgi.ebay.com/3-BUFFALO-TRACE-SINGLE-BARREL-EXPERIMENTAL-COLLECTION_W0QQitemZ6278174617QQcategoryZ13916QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'll just look at the pictures of the bottles.

Well, I won't say what I think about someone paying $400 because it could be an SB.com mate.....but, I hope not. Anyhow, somebody had some brass nuggets and paid the price tonight on ebay and it sure weren't me!!!

[Hedmans Brorsa]

somebody had some brass nuggets and paid the price tonight on ebay and it sure weren't me!!!

Think of all the good whiskey bottles you can get for that price! At the moment I´m enjoying brilliant stuff from all over the world (well, almost!) including my recent brilliant E.T. Lee, Blanton´s STFB, Stagg and even my newly acquired RHF has shaped up a bit even if I still regard it as a minor disappointment. Hey, I even managed to find a bottle of AAA 10yo (in Denmark, of all places!)

Dave and Roger,

Do I understand you right here, i.e. that you are advocating self-censorhip? I hope I´m wrong but if not I think you should ask yourself what constitues a true friend.

From my experience, the ones who are always nice to you are, more often than not, the same people who talk badly about you behind your back.

A true friend, on the other hand, praises and encourages you when it is deserved and, at the same time, dares to criticize you when it is called for.

I cannot in my wildest dreams think that anyone from BT who stops by at this forum would dismiss SB.com members as "enemies" just because of one complaint.

A community that chokes on its own over-friendliness is not a good thing in my book. To me it is an invitation to dullness and complacency.

Hey, even the head honcho himself, Jim, is prone to the odd venom spitting and I like him all the better for it!

[Rughi]

Dave and Roger,

Do I understand you right here, i.e. that you are advocating self-censorhip? I hope I´m wrong but if not I think you should ask yourself what constitues a true friend....A community that chokes on its own over-friendliness is not a good thing in my book. To me it is an invitation to dullness and complacency.

Hedmans,

There is constructive criticism and then there's the angry mob. Your post is the 101st of a thread in which probably 90+ get a good kick or slap in at BT. I think your post is a theoretical stance about free speech and "good friends", but doesn't respond to what has really happened in this thread at all.

In American Football there's a rule against "piling on" where it's a penalty to have more than 5 or 6 people hit the ball carrier before they bring him down (the first 3 or 4 to hit him is just good clean fun). I see piling on in this thread. I guess some will keep on piling on if that's what it takes for them to feel they are exercising their right to "free speech" or in an attempt to be a "good friend" but I don't feel the need to get any more punches in.

Roger

[ThomasH]

It looks like the EC was a retail success, someone paid 400.00 for a set on ebay last night!

thomas

[BSS]

Off the topic,

But Roger, you don't really think there is a rule in American Football that says "it's a penalty to have more than 5 or 6 people hit the ball carrier before they bring him down"........do you?

Hopefully you were just joking.

[Rughi]

Off the topic,

But Roger, you don't really think there is a rule in American Football that says "it's a penalty to have more than 5 or 6 people hit the ball carrier before they bring him down"........do you?

Hopefully you were just joking.

No True American jokes about Football

It should have said "after" not "before"

Here is a definition from football.com

"PILING ON: Several players jumping on the player with the ball after he's been tackled. Also called dogpiling.Piling on is illegal, with a 15 yard penalty."

In my experience growing up as a Raider fan in the era when they were the winningest team in professional sports (or so they claimed) and exhibited a certain joie de vivre in their style of play, the first 3 or 4 to get a hit in after the ballcarrier was down was, indeed, just good clean fun. I think 3 or 4 is "a few" and 5 or 6 is "several," which would, of course be a penalty.

Roger

[bluesbassdad]

Do I understand you right here, . . .

My response does not belong in this thread. I have sent you a Private Message.

Please carry on. :grin:

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[ProofPositive]

Indeed BT plans to release more of the BTEC, but in different forms. We got to try the next release during the sampler weekend at the BT lab. We were told that it would be bottled sometime in August. I'll let BT comment publically on what it is.

Sounds good - thanks for the info! I hope anything I said was not interpreted as negative comments on BT. I appreciate all they are doing. It's a shame this thread took a sour turn and got a little nasty.

NOW, as for my humble opinion.....YES, I would have loved to have had a shot at one of the bottles....BUT, that is just the way it works - Supply, Demand and the Captalist Free Market System. I see no wrong committed by BT or the folks who were fortunate enough to get a bottle or two. Oh well, just my 2 cents!

[cowdery]

Grant's questions answered:

How many distributors do they have?

I don't know, but at least one per state, so at least 50.

How many retailers do these distributors have?

I don't know.

How many of these 375ml bottles would ever make it to a consumer that walked into a store?

I don't know.

So - what is the purpose of this experimental release? Certainly not to draw any marketing information regarding the quality of the contents of these bottles from the general public or even the informed Bourbon drinking public.

To make a nice profit on what they are able to sell, to generate publicity, to position themselves as a leader and innovator, to create demand for other BT products that are in greater supply, to create demand in advance of future EC releases, to guage reactions to the current EC releases from the limited number of persons able to obtain them, possibly for the purpose of creating future general release products, and maybe some other things that haven't occurred to me yet.

BTW - you said earlier in this thread :

"Now that the cat is entirely out of the bag on this, how many of you are looking forward to paying $45 for a 375 ml bottle of "experimental" whiskey?"

If $45 was too much then - then what's up with the $300 a bottle price question?

There are essentially two ways to deal with a limited edition product, allocation and price. They chose allocation, which made some people unhappy, so I was wondering if they (you) would have liked price better as a way to limit demand. BT could have made a lot more money and the race wouldn't have been to the swift (or, more likely, the connected) but instead to the rich.

BTW cowdery - How many of these bottles do you own?

None, but I did taste them last year at Whiskeyfest Chicago in a public seminar open to anyone with a ticket to Whiskeyfest Chicago.

I don't know what your affiliation is with BT.

I have none.

If you want to know more about who I am and why I feel qualified to make the comments I have made, everything you need to know is on my web site. To get there, just click on my name below.

Have a nice day.

[bluesbassdad]

. . . Supply, Demand and the Captalist Free Market System.

If only that were so, it might be a big improvement for us consumers of bourbon.

Just think, no product-specific taxation, no market restrictions, no distribution restrictions . . . The mind boggles. In the best of all worlds I might be able to order from Kentucky for shipment to Arizona. Heck, let's go for an international free market, and let overseas StraightBourbonians in on it, too.

No doubt there would be unintended consequences. Would overseas buyers bid up the prices on top shelf products? The prices that exist in, let's say, Japan suggest that possibility.

Would mass market sales increase at the expense of the finer bottlings that many of us hold dear? If U.S. regulations on the product itself were eliminated (we did say "free market", right?) would barrel proof bottlings be reduced in favor of, let's say, 70 proof bottlings?

I like to pretend I'm a libertarian, but on second thought, maybe it's safer to leave things as they are, not that there's really a choice. I guess I'm getting cowardly in my old age.

In any event I'm happy that Buffalo Trace is pushing the envelope in regard to the creation and marketing of new styles of bourbon. I'll be even happier if I live long enough to see some of them on the shelves in Prescott, AZ, USA.

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[ProofPositive]

I like to pretend I'm a libertarian, but on second thought, maybe it's safer to leave things as they are, not that there's really a choice.

I am with you. No way to make everybody happy all at the same time. So, although not perfect, our system is the best the world has to offer to date.

That being said though, I am glad to be in Tennessee rather than Arizona.....it's easy for me to be fat & happy with the selections I enjoy. Other than Kentucky, it is probably the next-best state in which to be located in terms of bourbon.

[OscarV]

If these Experimental's are priced at $50.00 per 375ml and everyone is mad at Buffalo Trace,.... then where is the howling for their Pappy Van Winkle 20yo at $100.00 and the 23yo at $200.00 per 750ml?

Oscar

[ProofPositive]

If these Experimental's are priced at $50.00 per 375ml and everyone is mad at Buffalo Trace,.... then where is the howling for their Pappy Van Winkle 20yo at $100.00 and the 23yo at $200.00 per 750ml?

Oscar

Throughout the thread, it was not always the price. Yes, initially there was reaction that weighed in against price alone. As the response unfolded though, it seems to me that the availability factor joined in and become as much, if not more, important than the price. I think more anger was present due to the fact that many felt they had absolutely zero opportunity to buy any of them.

The sheer numbers of the Van Winkle products you mentioned were released in much greater number than this first or test round of the BT Experimentals. That is not true of the VW bottles. They were/are limited in number but not nearly as much as the BTEC.

Ironically, you use the Van Winkle bottles as an example of what many have and will continue to gladly pay. IMHO, that will be the same with the BTEC bottles as they are produced in larger numbers. This is America......we love to fuss & fume about price - but, once the venting is done we go ahead and pay the price for quality. The old maxim 'you get what you pay for' continues to hold true. Of course, there will be the hardliners who will never pay the premium price......and, they will be the ones who will continue to bluster about it far into the future - both of which they have every right to do.

Now, don't get me wrong - $45-50 is expensive & quite high for me as well to pay for a 375ml bottle of anything.....and, I probably would not buy a bottle for a while. At the same time though, there will be plenty of folks who will pay that price without looking twice and most who do will be some of those who said they never would.

[JeffRenner]

Chuck listed some reasons that BT might have produced this experimental collection, and then wrote that there were

maybe some other things that haven't occurred to me yet.

It was my impression, perhaps from something Ken Weber wrote here, that part of it was just the chance to have fun. Sort of, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to try ... ?" Just big kids playing in a big sand box.

Hats off to BT for allowing that kind of unleashed creativity with the company dime. I'm happy that it seems to have paid off. I think Ken has implied that there are more surprises aging in the BT rickhouses.

Eventually these kinds of experiments will make it onto the mass market at reasonable prices if they are worthwhile. I think it's kind of like cool, new electronic toys. Does anyone remember the price of a Texas Instruments TI99/4A or a Commodore 64 25 years ago? Or an Apple IIe? (I do - I paid $1400 for a IIe in 1983 :blush: - that's $1400 in 1983 dollars, and a monitor was extra!)

Jeff

[pepcycle]

What happens when we get to the little ones

[NorCalBoozer]

I think Ken has implied that there are more surprises aging in the BT rickhouses.

Jeff

according to this, BT has around 1500 barrels of experiments....

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5295

[cowdery]

What happens when we get to the little ones

50 ml bottles.

[ProofPositive]

I got curious today, so contacted the liquor manager for the area distributor which handles BT products directly -- and learned that Middle Tennessee got exactly ONE 12-bottle case (presumably, four of each bourbons), which went to Frugal McDoogal's, a Nashville liquor 'superstore'. A phone call to the store got me absolutely nowhere -- the person I talked to knew nothing about it, and couldn't find it in his database. Not surprising, I guess. It probably went directly to 'best customers' or the store manager's personal collection. Still, I may make a stop in there to question staff face-to-face sometime this week.

Any luck at McDoogal's? Or, have you heard of any surfacing anywhere else in & around Nashville?

[Brennan77]

Yall are right about the bottles going to special customers and employees. Here in New Orleans we got one case for the store. So far, I'm getting one as an employee, the spirits buyer is getting whatever he wants, and the rest is going to "special" customers. It's a way of saying thank you to good customers and to keep them coming back for the expensive and hard to get items. This is very common in the wine industry. For example, we just got allocations of Turley Zinfandel, which is hard to come by but not terribly expensive at list prices. These bottles never hit the shelves. They are used as a form of currency to please the good customers.

[ProofPositive]

Local rumor has it that a case or perhaps even two has arrived in town. Now, if I can find out where! If only 1 case is coming into the Nashville area, I find it hard to believe more than 1 is coming into the Memphis area. We have 2 large retailers here who have very close ties to BT as I understand it. If anyone here gets any, it will be one or both of them.

[BourbonSteve]

I should have my 3 bottles by the end of the month, I'll let y'all know how they taste! And to think, only 9 hoops to jump through to get them........

[SBOmarc]

Had never even been informed of this release. Although that did not surprise me, he is intrigued enough to call his Distributor and at least find out what if anything is possible.

[Grant]

Grant's questions answered:

How many distributors do they have?

I don't know, but at least one per state, so at least 50.

How many retailers do these distributors have?

I don't know.

How many of these 375ml bottles would ever make it to a consumer that walked into a store?

I don't know.

So - what is the purpose of this experimental release? Certainly not to draw any marketing information regarding the quality of the contents of these bottles from the general public or even the informed Bourbon drinking public.

To make a nice profit on what they are able to sell, to generate publicity, to position themselves as a leader and innovator, to create demand for other BT products that are in greater supply, to create demand in advance of future EC releases, to guage reactions to the current EC releases from the limited number of persons able to obtain them, possibly for the purpose of creating future general release products, and maybe some other things that haven't occurred to me yet.

BTW - you said earlier in this thread :

"Now that the cat is entirely out of the bag on this, how many of you are looking forward to paying $45 for a 375 ml bottle of "experimental" whiskey?"

If $45 was too much then - then what's up with the $300 a bottle price question?

There are essentially two ways to deal with a limited edition product, allocation and price. They chose allocation, which made some people unhappy, so I was wondering if they (you) would have liked price better as a way to limit demand. BT could have made a lot more money and the race wouldn't have been to the swift (or, more likely, the connected) but instead to the rich.

BTW cowdery - How many of these bottles do you own?

None, but I did taste them last year at Whiskeyfest Chicago in a public seminar open to anyone with a ticket to Whiskeyfest Chicago.

I don't know what your affiliation is with BT.

I have none.

If you want to know more about who I am and why I feel qualified to make the comments I have made, everything you need to know is on my web site. To get there, just click on my name below.

Have a nice day.

cowdery:

I believe that you have trashed the context of my original questions - and provided in <my> opinion - answers that remind me of a former president that could not determine the meaning of "is".

As you suggested - I did go to your web site.

Before I respond any further - I was informed by someone that you may be a lawyer.

Please confirm or deny as to whether or not you are a lawyer - and if so - as to what type of law you practice.

Please forgive me if I am wrong - but I believe that this is pertinent to my future discussions within the forum.

BTW - I am not a lawyer. I spend a lot of time writing computer programs. I don't spend alot of time trying to market the truth - as my perspective is at the true or false level. If you ask me a question - I'll do my best to answer the question you asked - in the same context that it was asked.

Remember the 449th!

http://norfield-publishing.com/449th/449site.html

Grant

[TNbourbon]

...If you ask me a question - I'll do my best to answer the question you asked - in the same context that it was asked...

Grant

Ah, context -- a good point! Might I suggest you try to ascertain what the context is before you imply aspersions, especially toward a long-standing SB.com stalwart and professional whiskey writer. In fact, those two facts ARE context here.

You don't have to agree with everything -- or anything, for that matter -- that is written here. But it behooves you to be civil -- and to acknowledge the mere possibility that others' opinions are well-grounded.