Laziness in labelling (Eagle Rare)

[Hedmans Brorsa]

I do not regard myself as a shallow person. When it comes to whiskey it´s what inside the bottle that counts. Maybe this is why the following “incident†raised more of a chuckle than anything else.

Background: my most recent bourbon purchase is a Eagle Rare 13yo SB made specifically for the French market. The fact that it was made for an anniversary did not prompt the company in question (La Maison du Whisky) to make any groundbreaking changes for the design. The label and bottle are identical with the ERSB 10yo SB. The only thing that differs is a silvery sticker added to the front neck (see pic).

What makes it hilarious, however, is the back label (see next pic) where the 10yo statement seems to have been blotted out with a pen. Only, the person who was assigned this noble task did not do his/her duty and missed the fact that the 10yo statement appears in the text as well.

Ah, well, the contents should be good anyway (haven´t opened it yet).

[jimibourbonhammered]

I bought an Eagle Rare 10yo SB yesterday and noticed some laziness for another reason. It doesn't say when it was barreled. I thought that was the whole point to have some individuality. If a certain bottling is especially good there's no way to seek out others except to go back to the same store and hope their stock came off the line at the same time.

Scratch the previous rant, looking closely at the print code at the bottom of the bottle it says: J0310710:30 Is it as simple as January 31 2007 10:30am. If so, why not put it on the label where it's not so elusive? And that's just when it was bottled, so is it 10yo or 10 years, 6 months, 3 days? Just playing here, I don't suppose I need that much information, I mean, it's not like anyone reads their info sheet from the BTAC top to bottom.

[Rughi]

I bought an Eagle Rare 10yo SB yesterday and noticed some laziness for another reason. It doesn't say when it was barreled. I thought that was the whole point to have some individuality. If a certain bottling is especially good there's no way to seek out others except to go back to the same store and hope their stock came off the line at the same time.

This was discussed at length a couple/few years ago. I'm sure it's easily found in the archives.

IIRC, BT's idea was that in the volumes they intended to put out ER 10sb that it would be unlikely one ever could find a sister bottle of a particularly good bottle. Couple that with BT's stance of keeping their single barrel selections extremely similar in profile anyway, and it seemed better to them to market the concept of "you'll always get something really good" not "find one you like and then buy more."

The single barrel concept as you and I might think of it is more analogous to store/restaurant barrel programs, where there'll be sister bottles in one spot for some time.

Roger

[ThomasH]

In another thread on this same type of subject, it was stated that there is considerable paperwork, approval lag time etc. involving the government that goes into changing the label on a bottle of whiskey. To me, that little sticker on the neck says it all, the bottle is from a special barrel purchase and has whiskey in it older that the stated age. The back label should be taken as the normal specification of the brand and nothing else. I wouldn't have bothered to take a marker to the back label of the bottle for any reason. That back label ia a normal part of the history and marketing of the brand!

Thomas