Buffalo Trace leaving Virginia shelves?

[Aged In Oak]

I was in my local ABC store the other day, and was surprised when I didn't see a single bottle of BT on the shelves. I also noticed that there were few or no bottles of other BT labels like Ancient Age, Elmer T. Lee, etc. I asked the clerks about it, and they told me that Buffalo Trace had been "discontinued" from their product line. However, they didn't seem to know if this was just for their store, or for the entire VA ABC system.

I haven't had the chance to check other ABC stores, but has anyone else in VA (or elsewhere) had this experience? I was surprised, because they always kept a lot of BT in stock. Even the clerks admitted they sold out pretty quickly once they stopped restocking. Being a BT fan, I'm very disappointed to see this happening, even if it is only one store.

Andy

[ThomasH]

I know that the Ancient Ancient Age 10yr. has basically disappeared from store shelves. My parents are in Myrtle Beach right now and I was going to have them get me a bottle of AAA while traveling through Virginia. The Virginia ABC website still lists it, but I couldn't locate any stores that had it that were near the route they were traveling. I know that BT has numerous brands on allocation and supplies of some are tight!

Thomas

[BourbonJoe]

It has been a stated fact that AAA was leaving Virginia. It was going to be released in Kentucky only and a couple large out of state buyers (Binny's was one). I don't know about the rest of the Trace products though.

Joe :usflag:

[ThomasH]

My last trip to kentucky, I didn't see any AAA and Binnys no longer has it on its website either!

Thomas

[craigthom]

AAA 10yo is all over the place in Louisville.

[Aged In Oak]

UPDATE: I was able to visit another ABC store today. Didn't have time to take a full inventory of BT products because I was on the way elsewhere. Like the first store, they had no BT at all. There were two bottles of ETL (one of which I snagged) and a handful of AAA 10yr. Better than the first place, but still a disappointing stock in my book, especially for the lack of straight-up BT. I wasn't able to get anything helpful from the staff at the second store, either (oh, for a good liquor store clerk!).

Andy

[HighTower]

. There were two bottles of ETL (one of which I snagged) and a handful of AAA 10yr.

Andy

So did you pick up some AAA 10yo?? I had some tonight, fantastic stuff!

Scott

[BourbonBalls]

I live in California, and Buffalo Trace is just beginning to appear here, altho other BT products have been here for a while.

Do you think they are pulling it from some markets to make an introduction in others? I'd like to think they have enough to go around to everyone! BUT>>>you never know about how/why the distilleries marketing does what it does

[mgilbertva]

I was in two ABC stores in Northern VA and they had plenty of BT products on the shelves: AA, AAA 10 star, BT, ETL, ER, and of course, Blanton's. Surprisingly, one store had Weller 7/107. I would be very skeptical of claims that they were going to remove all BT products.

However, I can make some calls and get a more definitive answer on Monday or Tuesday.

[Aged In Oak]

I was in two ABC stores in Northern VA and they had plenty of BT products on the shelves: AA, AAA 10 star, BT, ETL, ER, and of course, Blanton's. Surprisingly, one store had Weller 7/107. I would be very skeptical of claims that they were going to remove all BT products.

However, I can make some calls and get a more definitive answer on Monday or Tuesday.

Good to know. I agree that the idea of removing all BT products would seem a little strange. I could understand cutting back on some of the higher-end or less popular (in terms of sales) variants, but I don't understand regular BT missing from the shelves. Even one store "discontinuing" the flagship bottling seems odd, unless it happens to be in a some area where no one happens to buy it.

[mgilbertva]

Ok, I got the word from a "well-placed source" inside of VA ABC. All currently carried BT products are safe for future purchase in VA.

The only thing being discontinued is Buffalo Trace Bourbon in the liter format; .750s will be continued ... for now. The purchasing people at ABC feel Sazarac is not supporting Buffalo Trace Bourbon, e.g., through a decent ad campaign. If Saz really wants it to compete against flagship brands like Jack Daniels, Makers Mark and Bulleit, they need to put up or shut up (my paraphrase).

One further note of interest, the big BTAC whiskeys should be readily available for motivated buyers in a month or month-and-a-half, i.e., Stagg, ER 17, and to a lesser extent, WLW and Handy.

Saz 18 is another story. VA is only receiving an allocation of 20 cases (60 bottles). This is an improvement however. Some years they only get 15 bottles.

[cowdery]

Producers are usually very slow to delist products in control states because getting them listed in the first place is so difficult.

[SBOmarc]

With Buffalo Trace now freshly available in California, I do wonder what this does to a supply and demand market. We had to wait quite a long time for it to appear. I have seen only the 1.75L and the 750ml.

[mozilla]

I believe that the liter bottles are going to bars and restaurants. That is why they disappear first.

[Aged In Oak]

Thanks for the detective work, Mark! Glad to finally make some sense out of the garbled explanation I received from the store clerks, not to mention the fact that BT will not disappear for the time being. Hopefully something will happen to change ABC's mind about the "pushing" of the product.

Great news about BTAC, too! I'll have to keep my eye out.

Andy