Very interesting:
Most everyone agrees that Pappy Van Winkle’s the best bourbon around, but near impossible to find. Little known fact: W.L. Weller 12yr and Pappy Van Winkle 10yr are both made at Buffalo Trace using the same recipe. So although they’re aged slightly differently, a bottle of Weller lets you sip from the same stock for half the price, and infinity times the find-ability.
Our end of quarter Scotch Club spectacular featured both the Grenmorangie 25 and Yamazaki 18. Both excellent; however, the Glen 25 well over twice the cost of the Yamazaki and I like the Yamazaki just as much.
Dang I should post more to this thread, we’ve had quite a few amazing whiskeys and scotches over the last year or so. I usually wind up buying some funky bourbons or other interesting menagerie of whiskey from unusual places to make it interesting (recent hauls involve Balcones, Cut Spike, Lost Spirits, etc.) Living near a pretty amazing liquor outlet (K&L) and a state that allows out of state deliveries (California) helps a lot.
— Alan
My desk is getting full:
— Alan
Whoa! Jefferson’s Ocean!
Dang straight! If you’re nice to me I’ll bring you some :)
— Alan
I looked up that Jefferson’s Ocean after seeing it in the thread yesterday. Sounded pretty cool. Lo and behold i was at a liquor store today that was having a nice store wide sale and I picked up a bottle for $60. Haven’t tried it yet though. I did smell it, and it was nice.
When am I not?!?
We’re doing our End of Quarter spectacular today in Scotch Club. We don’t have a ton of entries, but since we pooled together roughly $500 to purchase 2 scotches (in the middle), it’s enough:
— Alan
I notice that the Dalwhinnie is the lowest level. :-)
No whisk(e)y until end of Passover. :-(
Ach! Nae, fire. I’m verra sorry.
booooooooooooo
— Alan
The Dalwhinnie was a previous contributor; the two in the middle were unopened and of course I’ve posted (and brought) the Jefferson’s Ocean before.
— Alan
I used to have about 20 different whisk(e)ys, but I switched to cognac a few years back. The only one remaining (and replaced when empty) is Lagavulin… Which reminds me: I need to get a new bottle soon!
I saw Pappy Van Winkle or whatever on a restaurant menu for $65. What’s a good cutoff point to try a glass, given that I don’t have much of a developed palette but do have enough disposable income to want to say I’ve tried it?
Which one was that? For the 23 year, I might consider that if I’d never had it before. My local usually sells that for $40/glass (when they have it), but I’ve gathered that’s a pretty “good” price relatively speaking. For anything younger than that, I’d suggest taking a pass.
Oh I don’t remember. There was one just below it (maybe slightly different name??) that said 12 year or something lower.
The restaurant was both highly priced and in a location where everything is automatically 30% more than it should be, so I’ll keep eye out for a little better price.
For the 23, $70 is about standard. 50 or better, might as well give it a whirl.
I need some advice. I’m about to graduate – in a month – with my PhD. My advisor’s done a ton for me over the last decade that I’ve been in school with him. Incidentally, he’s into bourbon (and me too). What’s a good bourbon gift? My budget is around $200 but I’m willing to go over. He’d be impressed with Pappy Van Winkle but I’m not sure I’ll be able to find any around me.
I’m not a super expert or anything but seems to me the problem is that many bourbons are not aged for too long, meaning they’re not in casks and in storage long, so the cost won’t be nearly as high as say, scotch, or Pappy, which is usually found around 20+ years aged. Very limited distribution will also jack prices up, but usually the bottles go fairly fast before the price gets really bad, but there isn’t a huge reseller market for them (again, unlike Pappy, which for various reasons the name and brand sells itself). Many bourbons out there won’t cost above $80 or so.
A number of long-aged and somewhat rare bottlings have come out of the Orphan Barrel line, which are usually $80-120 or so.
It’d be a lot easier finding a $200 bottle of scotch :)
— Alan
