Aldi's 40 yr old Glenbridge debacle!

I was working nights so sent my girlfriend down to my local store. She texted me at 6.40 to say she was in line and that she was 9th. I'd already done the maths, 3000 bottles between 450 stores and realised that I was almost certainly going to be out of luck. I was kicking myself, thinking that I probably should've taken the day off and gone down there myself and waited much earlier, however she then texted me back to say the guy in front of her, in 8th spot arrived at 5.45am and he didn't get any either. I think the thing that angered me most though was when I got in from work at 10am, I looked on eBay and there were already 16 bottles on auction.

The bottle Aldi is using for their 40yo looks exactly the same as the bottle used by the Do-It-Yourself-Blending internet retailer Ralfy has reviewed in his last vlog (see youtube: "whisky review 236 - Blend-your-own Whisky" by ralfystuff. Coincidence?

As for the Aldi-action... I don't know if the PR Aldi is aiming for by selling such a bottle of whisky is worth the bad reputation with the mass of people, pissed off by not getting a bottle after waiting for several hours in the cold ... what is Aldi expecting to gain from such a scheme?

I tried at a few stores in coventry only to be told every shop within a ten mile radius , had sold out by 8.00pm. there are forty five on ebay now asking over £200 for some of them. well peed off.

@dougwatts After talking to my girlfriend again last night, I mentioned your post regarding the tickets. She said that, at the store she went to they had also given out tickets. They had 6 tickets, one for each bottle of whisky. And that as the bottles were kept under the counter, people who wanted to by them were supposed to queue up, and then, the lucky first six would then take them and exchange them at the checkout. In order to clarify things, I popped into the store this morning and had a word with the manager who told me that, all the stores had been given instructions, explaining the ticketing process. And that it was done to make it fair. On a first come first serve basis. It seems to me that the manager at your local store, either didn’t read the instructions, or, at worst was pulling a swervey one. If it was me, I think I would probably chance my arm and call up their head office and make a complaint. You never know, they may have put a few bottles aside in case of issues.

I too missed out and despite my wife getting to the store at just past 6:30 in the morning, she was 8th or 9th, just a few paces too short. Tickets were given out at the time, so didn't seem like anything was underhand, but really gutted she didn't make the cut... It smacks a bit i guess seeing them on ebay, especially when there are plenty of us that would have liked to have bottle on the shelf and to sample rather than selling on, but i guess that is life.. I have to say, not even going anywhere near ebay to buy one and seriously crossing my fingers that my wife is telling me porkies and she secretly got one for xmas for me...lol

At least you can console yourselves with the knowledge that whilst it is an amazingly old whisky for the money, I have yet to see any suggestion in any review that it is actualy a GOOD whisky for the money. Seems like the main thing people are missing out on is the experience of having a 40 year old bottle on the shelf. Of course my opinion would probably be completely different if I lived somewhere that made getting my hands on a bottle a realistic option.

The ebay bottles on Friday (two that ended on Friday) went for £160 and £180, so somebody is willing to pay!

@Peatpete If you check the 'net you'll find several rather good reviews of the 40 Year Old. Not so much the 24 Year Old, though. I'm not willing to buy a bottle of the internet, but I wouldn't mind getting a sample to taste.

@markjedi1 To be honest I can't remember where I saw them, but I saw a couple of reviews done pre-release that had the 24 as being pretty sub-standard, and the 40 as being "nice" but nothing particularly special. My point is that for around the same price as a nice but not awesome 40 year old Aldi, you can have a truely stunningly good Ardbeg, Aberlour, or Toshan... That said, I would have to agree that I love to have a taste of it...

I've tasted the 40 year old. I was at the press launch for the two whiskies. I decided not to cover it because it seemed like a cynical ploy to get people in store and I wasn't that keen to do their dirty work for them. Particularly as the ploy seemed to me to devalue whisky.

The 24 was pretty dreadful while the 40 year old was very drinkable, especially at the price.

I wouldn't advise anyone to pay over the odds on the internet for it though. Once you start bidding anything up to what it "should" cost you probably have the choice of other better whiskies at the same price. I'm sure a lot of people bought them with aim of making a quick buck on eBay, so don't expect miracles if you decide to help them make their quick buck.

I would wager that you can buy better whiskies for £180

@Jean-Luc Based on everything I am hearing I will wager that you can get better whiskies for 40 pound. (I cant remember how to do the pound sign) @Piero To me this is a case of "damned by faint praise" again. For this fuss it should be "stageringly good, a magnificent drop" not "Very drinkable for the price". Honestly, at this price if you read the reviews and ignored the age statment there would still be bottles left from the original 3000 in 6 months time.

It looks to me like rather than a debacle it's all gone rather well for Aldi. The 24yo may be awful (they sent me a sample of it and it's nasty) but the 40yo is drinkable and the press distorted the press release copy just enough to get Aldi a stack of publicity as we enter the Christmas buying season.

There's now been a lot of discussion of everything else Aldi do (as well as the fact that their Oliver Cromwell gin is good as are their fresh veggies, neither of which I can confirm as it's an hour's journey for me to get to one and I've never been) and some people have ended up with a nice whisky that's easily worth the £50 that they paid for it.

Those buying on eBay are sure to be disappointed, but I'm sure we'll end up finding that only a small percentage of the bottles of Glenbridge get sold on - the same thing happened last year with the Heston Blumenthal Christmas Puddings (dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072713/… - just because it has a Buy it Now price doesn't mean someone bought it). We get at least one thing like this almost every Christmas in the UK, this year it was Aldi's turn...

I know a few people who got some of the 40 so I hope to be able to bribe a taste out of at least one of them (I slept through my alarm so didn't make the hour long pilgrimage to the Aldi queue) but all in all I think Aldi have done rather well.

Apart from talking crap about continuous stills on the front of the 24 year old box, that is...

I was on nights so went to my local Aldi at Nuneaton for 6:30. Was first there and as others began to arrive for the whisky the store issued 6 tickets on a first come first served basis - by 7:30 all 6 tickets had been issued to the first 6 customers. When the store opened at 8:00 we all purchased our bottles of whisky - the staff at the store handled the situation very professionally. Speaking later to a member of staff at Aldi that wanted to purchase a bottle was told that they were not allowed to buy one so ensuring that all 6 bottles were sold to first customers. Agood and fair deal from Aldi - am looking forward to tasting the Glenbridge as an xmas treat

Found this on eBay from USA: bit.ly/tl9oUR Current price is GBP 199.99
(Approximately US $310.74)