Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@OdysseusUnbound I wish and hope you get them all!

@fiddich1980 The secondary value of the Double Eagle Rare is $12k-$13k US no questions asked.I doubt any more than 5 bottles will ever be opened of the 299 (disgruntled ex wives not included). I do not believe this bottle was ever meant to be opened.

Buffalo Trace are the worst offenders as they intentionally feed the secondary Bourbon market with these Unicorn releases and US allocations of their entire lineup including bottom shelf Weller Reserve.

@Astroke, about that 20 yo Eagle Double Rare, rarity makes its own market, apparently. A few years ago neither I nor most of my friends would get excited about Eagle Rare 17 yo, because it was bottled at a measly 45% ABV. Sure, we wanted Stagg, Weller, and Handy because they were bottled at barrel strength. In 2011 I left a couple of bottles of Eagle Rare 17 yo on the shelf, even after they had been discounted to $ 50 each. Then a funny thing happened. Eagle Rare 17 yo and Sazerac 18 yo Rye, the two low ABV BTAC releases, became the rarest of the BTACs by bottle count. Now being able to get a bottle of Eagle Rare 17 is a very big deal.

@fiddich1980 I’m no flipper (statement of fact, not of judgment) so I didn’t bother putting in for Eagle Double Rare. I can’t imagine spending over two grand on a bottle of booze. But I’m not Bill Gates so...

@OdysseusUnbound All is good. I just had visions of you rubbing it in to those social media groups who swear that Eagle Rare is the "end all and be all bourbon". If I recall, your not a fan of Eagle Rare 10 and batches can vary.

@Victor Yes, I received a nice haul of trade bottles for a 2017 ER 17 as only 1500 existed. I have no problem with anyone who wants to pay $12k for a 20 year old mediocre bottle of Bourbon. I still believe this bottle was never meant to be opened, how many reviews has anybody seen or read? I believe that Buffalo Trace with their seemingly random distribution and allocation of the core lines feeds the secondary market of their products. OWA 107, Blanton's, Weller 12, Rock Hill Farms, etc etc. are sitting on shelves in on area of the US and are lottery allocated in other areas. I hope the influx of the store pick craze continues as it offers nice/better alternatives to the allocated BT products.

@fiddich1980 I’ve never owned a bottle of it, so my opinion is based on bar/pub drams, and other people’s bottles...and you never know how long those have been opened or how they have been stored. I’ve never been overly impressed with ER 10, but I don’t think I found it unpleasant. Kind of “meh” if memory serves...

I was after something heavily sherried. I'm a sucker for Springbank but I've never actually tried a Hazelburn. A special offer (5% off + free shipping) brought this down to the same price as Springbank 12 CS so it was a no brainer for me. Reviews are positive. Who's had it?

@Hewie - I've had the 13 for what that might be worth? I reviewed it on here. I've had it stashed away for a few months though as sherried whisky and hot weather don't mix that well for my tastes.

That said, I had a couple of pours recently and thought it was getting better. Classic sherry, dried fruits, red berries, touch of leather and that Springbank salty funkiness sitting in the background. A real malty base flavour as well - like a good cherry beer.

@Hewie, I think the one I had was the 13 too - from a friend's bottle. I didn't really love it. But it seemed similar (in memory) to the Springbank 14 Fino, Heavy & "brown" tasting. I know I'm not painting a beautiful picture, but I also know that you'll get the reference to that Fino!

@Hewie I had that one a while ago, but like @MadSingleMalt I can’t remember if it was the 13 or 14 year old. Now that I think about it, it was the Olorosso version, so it must have been the 14. My recollection is that it was slightly sulphured and somewhat bitter on the palate. I have not been inclined to try it again and have since reverted to the Hazelburn 10 which I like a lot. Let us know your thoughts on it.

I haven’t bought a bottle, but a friend has a heel of the Glenfiddich Winter Storm left and he is going to dole it out among three of his malthead friends on Saturday afternoon. I’m very curious to try this one as I will probably never spring for a full bottle myself.

Amrut Special Limited Edition Madeira, 50% ABV, another bottle of Amrut Naarangi, 50% ABV, and Metze's Select Bourbon, 46.5% ABV. I had gone into town with the objective of finding some Amrut Intermediate Sherry Matured Single Malt. That trail has gone cold (and cold from Shawan too, @Nock), so I consoled myself with the Amrut LE Madeira, and another bottle of that crowd-pleaser with the unique flavour profile, Amrut Naarangi. When I spotted the 2015 release Metze's Select Bourbon I decided to buy a bottle in honour of Master Distiller Greg Metze whom I met last month.

@Victor Very sad to hear about the Amrut IS. I hope you have a few stashed away for a rainy day? I only have one unopened bottle left of Batch 2 (and about 200mL of Batch 5 which I should decant). We really need to get together and taste some Amrut (and some peat). I have an independent bottle from Blackadder I intend to open this weekend. I am curious to experience your love of the Naarangi

I also am in a buying mood. I have really been enjoying Bruichladdich lately. The bottle of The Classic Laddy Scottish Barley I just picked up (on closeout for $37.09) has been so good I just had to go pick up another. While in the store I couldn't resist another bottle of Port Charlotte 10yo.

On closer inspection: I have opened my Classic Laddy batch 2019/01/30 (Jan. 30th 2019) and I am really enjoying the farmy notes. I now have a second bottle which is 2017/12/05 (Dec. 5th 2017). I did pick them up at different stores. And both stores have more of each stock. I think tomorrow I will need to open the 2017 and see how it compares with the 2019. If the price drops down to $28.09 in September I want to know which batch to stock up on.

As to the Port Charlotte . . . I will post that in the "What I am Drinking Now" thread

@Nock I would have bought 5 bottles of Amrut Intermediate Sherry Matured Single Malt Whisky today if I had found them at below $ 150 each net. I think I am down to one opened and one unopened bottle of Intermediate Sherry, one unopened bottle of Peated Cask Strength (my deep thanks to Dr. Nozinan for that one), one unopened bottle of Portonova, 3 unopened.and one opened bottle of Naarangi, and that new bottle of the Amrut LE Madeira. I have recently been waking up to the fact that I have taken availability of Amrut products too much for granted. Two years ago I had no more than a couple of bottles cumulative of all Amruts on hand. The recent hopefully temporary discontinuation of Amrut Intermediate Sherry was an event against which I could have done a better job of hedging. I tried to remedy that today, but I now might have to wait for future batches from Amrut. .

@Victor I have suffered from a wealth of Amruts. it is currently the most plentiful distillery in my collection (13% of my unopened bottles), with 12 different expressions. I was lucky to pick up some Naarangi last winter, and @Cricklewood was generous enough to source me a Peated Port pipe that he got at a steal.

I missed out on a reasonably priced Madeira cask because the box looked like an IS box in a photo and I was focused on the $115 Naarangi next to it. Sad...

IS is getting harder to find in Calgary. It's not on any of the major stores' websites and Liquorconnect.com doesn't show it or Portonova. I'm glad I picked up one of each last fall after someone's warning that it was being moved to travel retail. I AM planning a trip overseas soon though...

I'm noticing, with Naarangi and now the Madeira, a disturbing return to the 50% ABV plateau (like Fusion). Now both whiskies I've tasted at 50% (Fusion and Naarangi) have been great (and the Peated and unpeated malts at 46% are very good too), but each could have been even greater at CS. I hope this is not the new normal.

@Nozinan yes, that "bottle it at 50% ABV so that it will be drinkable to the masses" commercial marketing mindset is the bane of the Big Flavours Lover.

That is a most excellent collection of Amruts that you have!!!

@Astroke Sazerac Company has had unusual pressures placed upon it by virtue of the sudden overwhelming popularity of many of the products of its Buffalo Trace Distillery. Up to about 2014 BT products routinely sat on shelves in the USA at very reasonable prices. Then suddenly, by all reports, everything they made at that distillery became allocated. What was the company to do with the scarcity?

In an industry leaning heavily upon its traditions and as a purveyor of what had been in America the inexpensive drink of the working man, and not of the snob, collector or connoisseur no solution to supply insufficient to meet demand would be satisfactory to those unable to buy the products at an affordable cost. It looks to me that the course the company chose was to honour its best long-standing vendor customers while keeping the MSRPs low, much lower than retail demand would generate. Really the way things are with Sazerac products in the US now, it is a wonder that there has not been a US customer revolt that ANY BTAC, Van Winkle, etc. is sent out of the country.

I do not believe that the Sazerac Company or the Buffalo Trace Distillery like the present scalping situation one bit. It makes them appear to be elitists, which they are not. That is why they have recently pumped $ 11 Billion new dollars into the Buffalo Trace Distillery in order to increase production levels. Pappy Van Winkle and George T Stagg remain top 1% barrels, so the only way to increase their absolute numbers is to increase the distillery's total numbers. This they are doing. But it will take a lot of time to get the full benefits.

@Victor So maybe in 15 years Stagg will be more plentiful?

We can only hope...

@Victor , my issue with Buffalo Trace is their allocation by state of the regular core range stuff. I listen to a lot of chat sites and there seems to be a secondary price depending what state you are in of every offering from Buffalo Trace to Blanton's depending where you are located. The Weller core line is secondary priced in almost all non government alcohol controlled states. That is what I pick up on the youtube live chats on most of them. (I would not know where the allocation starts and finishes). I do not know if every state has a distributor or the products are purchased straight from the distillery.

BT should penalize those distributors (if that's the case) or the liquor stores that are selling Weller 12 for $200+, ETL for $150, OWA 107 for $100+. Not a perfect solution, I am sure there are better. Bad enough private citizens are selling Bourbon at an inflated price on Facebook or Bottlespot but the liquor stores should be held accountable. Once a few are nailed and cut off from BT or the distributor. So as it stands BT probably does not care once the product is bought and paid for and leaves the distillery. I don't completely blame BT for the Bourbon availability insanity, but they seem to have the only mid shelf Bourbon that commands secondary prices due to demand and or allocation so it may be in their best interest to leave it alone.

@Astroke, BT has a full book. Everything is sold before it is bottled. That’s the way Marc Brown (President/CEO) described it a few years ago. Their inventory is expanding and allows them to have more throughput. He claimed that vendors receive product throughout the year, but the product doesn’t sit on store shelves for as long a time as it had previously, as a result, some vendors experience a stock out position. Loyalty has its rewards.

The secondary market has created a frenzy. Product that just ain’t worth the bother now commands a super-premium price. YOU CANT BUY THAT KIND OF EXPOSURE! Ain’t nothing gonna change anytime soon.

Had that taste of the Glenfiddich Winter Storm I mentioned earlier. Very nice, but to me, it had the nose and taste of a high end blend and I thought it was interesting, but quite an atypical single malt. The others didn't really agree. We had it at room temp, not chilled. Great looking bottle, though. The highlights of the little afternoon session were Benriach 21 year old and Springbank 19, both spectacular and both a good notch above the Winter Storm. We wrapped it up with some very some very tasty G & M cask strength Caol Ila 10 year old. A pleasant couple of hours on a warm Saturday afternoon with 3 fellow maltheads.

@paddockjudge Nope, I see no changes coming. If I had the selection of Bourbon/Rye's to choose from like the average American does, I probably would not even wander down the near empty BT isle anyway.

I just bought a bottle of Booker’s Batch 2018-1. Why? I mean, I’m not drinking for the rest of September and I’m supposed to be done buying for a long time, so why did I buy this? As usual the answer is a combination of FOMO and poor impulse control. A friend texted me that the LCBO closest to my workplace had a few bottles of Booker’s in stock and I couldn’t help myself.

@OdysseusUnbound, well done! They are not always available.

@paddockjudge That’s exactly what I was thinking. The remaining bottles of Little Book Chapter II available online are also calling to me. This FOMO is getting out of hand....

@OdysseusUnbound $110 dollars! I remember when Booker’s was about $70 at the KGBO, and in the 50s in Calgary, and that was probably 5-6 years ago only.

@Nozinan Yup. And I almost bought two....but I want to remain married. Maybe next payday.

@OdysseusUnbound it does not sound like you have really curtailed your whisk(e)y purchases....

@Victor You are not wrong.