Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@Wierdo I like your photo as I think it reflects the nature of the bottlings, labels, pricing and style of Springbank. In total contrast to the latest Lalique ( Glenturret ) offerings. Haha.

Such a shame their site couldn’t cope. Did they limit purchases to customers? Although not such if that would have made things worse tbh.

I love Springbank as do many others but have totally given up even thinking about trying such things as the local barleys. The auction prices for Springbank seem to be growing more and more as you point out.

I went to Campbeltown a few years ago in order to try some new things, see the history of the place and pick up some unique bottlings including some from the legendary cage. When I got there about an hour after the shop opening, when I mentioned the cage the staff member looked slightly exasperated and pointed me at two boxes which they hadn’t had time to unpack and put in the cage. All of them were bourbon cask whiskies which suited me as it was what I wanted, as I was and am keen on expressions that give you an idea of distillery character.

Presumably everything different was already gone. I have heard that the more unusual casks get snapped up earlier and this seems to be reflected in the price difference seen on auctions between these and the bourbon cask bottles.

Thank goodness Springbank still seem to be rewarding those such as yourself who persevere, by not banging up the prices given what others are making out of them.

Such a shame really, but the whole market value thing has been done to death here and everywhere, and I suppose a greater incentive to make the journey to the shop or festival. Again only for those who live close enough or can afford to travel a great distance, which again pushes the resale price up.

I think the Springbank phenomenon has been around for a while and again their pricing commitment ( for the mo ) for their core bottlings is again admirable. Very satisfied with always having a ten available in the stash.

Good for you for getting these two and I hope they taste as good as they look. Cheers. Tim..

@Timp Thanks for the reply Tim. They did limit purchases to 2 of each bottle. I actually think that's too much. I think they should have said 1 of each, per customer. I was a bit frustrated as they'd ran out of the Springbank 8 I wanted to get. But then I'm lucky as at least I got 2 bottles. Some society members got none. Then you've got people posting on social media about how they're really happy with their haul of 8 bottles (probably gonna flip 4 of them). When other members who have paid the same membership fee haven't managed to grab one it seems a bit unfair.

I think Springbank should write society membership numbers on labels and any that end up on the secondary market the member gets kicked out of the society.

I also kind of don't see the point of buying more than 1 bottle of these very limited releases. To me it mistakes the spirit of the thing which is they are supposed to be quite ephemeral. You open one. You enjoy it. You finish it. It's gone forever. You move onto the next one. That's the whole point. Not to stockpile them.

I think it is great that Springbank still make whisky the way they do and don't try to rip off fans. They could charge a lot more than they do. And it's a credit to them they haven't started profiteering like Balblair, Macallan etc.

It's great in some aspects that they are old fashioned in the way they do things (Major bits of machinery held together by gaffer tape etc). However, their quaintness when it comes to the commercial side of things is frustrating. Monday was an absolute clusterf*** to be frank. It could have been managed a lot better. They obviously want to look after people like myself who are fans who want to drink their products. But I think they need to have a bit of a think about how they make bottles available to their long standing customers? I couldn't even get close to buying any of the last 3 limited releases they did. Monday was obviously an attempt at that. It just didn't quite work.

I'd love to make the trip to Campbeltown. I envy you in that respect. There's just not a lot there to be able to convince the family it's a holiday destination. I'm glad you were able to get something from the cage. Imagine going all that way and they had nothing? You'd be fuming!

I agree about the 10. Such a great staple malt at a decent price. Been hard to get hold of recently. I always have a couple in my stash.

@Wierdo - nice score! Sounds like you had to work for it though!!

I'm not a fanboy of SB but do like some of their stuff. For me, the ten is a near perfect whisky - nothing I've had from their range has been better.

If I had those two bottles I'd bang them on auction in six months and spend the lot on 10's Mind you, that's assuming one can still buy it - I waited over six months to get this recent bottle on MoM.

Honestly, All this flurry over buying whisky to make a few quid is complete madness but where there's a market ... Not the producers fault, and some, like Springbank, at least try to make things fair and affordable - they could really take the piss if they wanted; but I agree more could be done. I keep thinking the bubble will burst but it just gets bigger and bigger ...

These arrived today from auction. Dimple is from the 60's and the J W from 70's/80's. Unusual German export bottle of the latter and I think it looks very cool (as much as a bottle of whisky can anyhow). Very excited to try the Dimple too to sample those older grains and malts.

Both cost under £25, hammer price, which is a steal. Thankfully, my other wild bids were quashed!

And the J W from the front ha!

@RianC

A few years ago I was offered a bottle of dimple by the family of a patient. They had had it for decades. The nose was quite nice. I didn’t accept it. If it had been sealed I probably would have taken it and opened it at a tasting

@Nozinan - Shame you didnt get to sample it but the tasting is a great idea. The older blends contain a good whack of Glenkinchie and Linkwood, apparently.

A Wild Turkey 101. Why? Back to £26, which is very fair, and it's my favourite go-to bourbon. I'm not convinced it will be as cheap (or available) for so long either. I go under the knife tomorrow as well, so it will be a nice little welcome home gift to myself.

@RianC Good idea to treat yourself and hope all goes well tomorrow. Samples sent this afternoon, hope you enjoy them. . Cheers. Tim.

John Walker Celebretory Blend. The red screw cap is slightly off-putting, but the whisky, at 51% ABV, is very tasty. Mid to high 80s I'd say.

My most recent cabinet addition is a bottle which my sister gave me as a birthday present yesterday of John J. Bowman Single Barrel Bourbon, 50% ABV. This is my very first bottle of John J. Bowman, despite having tasted it when it first came out in 2011, and at later opportunities. I am very happy to have it. Thank you, @Maddie!.

@Victor I have a heel left of the J J Bowman SiB. Will make it a priority to replace when the border reopens

Got a bit lucky. Driving home from work. Wanted to fill up the car. But there was a queue for the petrol station. So I thought 'sod it' turned and went to a wine merchants I've driven past but not gone into to see what whiskies they stocked?

Anyway they had a reasonable selection. I'll definitely be detouring there on the way home again. But the bottle I grabbed was a bottle of A'bunadh. It was batch 48 which is from 2015. And the owner obviously had it on the shelf a while and didn't realise Aberlour have jacked up the price of A'bunadh. So I got for the original price of £53!

@Wierdo That’s an excellent pick up

Picked up some clean and chewy sherry cask matured, single cask, cask strength single malt, but not scotch. This is for blending. It has recently become more difficult to find. Along with the Kavalan Solist Oloroso Sherry Cask, I picked up another "birthday bottle" for a future anniversary; Cognac Vallein Tercinier Rue 71.

Found this at 30% off, so was a buy at $109

@paddockjudge You look to be covered for Kavalan Oloroso for awhile

@paddockjudge Alcohol free CS single malt! Right up my alley|!

@Nozinan, Hahaha, yes, alcohol-free cask strength single malt. At first glance it may appear that way. Upon closer examination you will be able to see ........... 58.6

A new addition to the whisky cabinet;

Fettercairn SMWS 94.10 (13 year - Aug. 2007) "The gentle beast from the east". After 11 years in a refill ex-bourbon hogshead, transferred to a 1st-fill ex-Pedro Ximenez sherry hogshead - 56.0% ABV.

Why? Because I've never owned a Fettercairn before and it's finished in an ex-PX cask. It's also very rare for the Society to offer bottles from this distillery. This is only the 10th cask that the Society has ever released from Fetterecairn.

@bwmccoy isn’t that the distillery that used to be known as Old Cabbage Water?

@bwmccoy I'll be interested to hear what you think of it. I almost bought a Cadenhead Fettercairn, but flinched at the last minute.

Another Glenlivet 16 Nadurra. As I liked the last one so much! I think this one might be the last one from the series, although not sure? It’s 12/14/E. 60.2%

Will be fun to do a head to head with the other one I have. Cheers.

A JW Blue from auction, likely bottled late 90's and, unbeknownst to me when bidding, was presented to the coopers and distillers at Port Dundas in 2001. I say 90's as the Striding Man is still walking to the left and they flipped this across the range in late '99. (The cynic in me thinks they had a wee surplus of stock lying around ... I'm sure the lads and lasses deserved it, mind!). The box has seen better days but so what?! And it's quite novel to see whisky presented in a coffin

I've never tried Blue Label and would not buy a bottle off the current market. This is a 75 cl bottle @43% and has been 'bottle ageing' for 20+ years. Web chatter suggests these older bottlings were of a much better quality than today's, and I paid less than one would cost now for it. Still not a cheap bottle, but what the hell!

My golf membership is on hold until I recover, so this is a bonus purchase with the surplus cash and will be (yet another ha!) recovery incentive! I'm looking forward to it to be honest.

How have others found Blue Label?

@RianC whoa! You own one more bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label than I have ever owned.

In the right frame of mind Johnnie Walker Blue Label is delicious. This is a case of being in the proper alignment with the kind of beverage which you have chosen to drink. If you are a Corryvreckan guy or in a Corryvreckan mood, then you should run away from Blue Label. If you like something like, say, Compass Box Hedonism (I do not), then you can appreciate Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

I have alternately been delighted, edified, and thoroughly unimpressed by Johnnie Walker Blue Label, depending upon my frame of mind, and the batch at hand. With a full bottle from which to work I would expect that you can get to know it well enough to choose the right times FOR YOU at which to experience maximum enjoyment from it. Like everything else in life, it is a learning process.

@RianC I’ve had exactly 2 experiences with JW Blue and they’ve been overwhelmingly positive, but that may be related to the context in which I tasted Blue. The first time I had it was in a hotel bar. I was in Montreal for a work-related conference and I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. We took turns buying rounds and the third (?) round was JW Blue. It was subtle yet eminently enjoyable.

My second experience was after helping my wife’s cousin move. Her husband is more of a blended whisky guy and his dad brought over a bottle of “the good stuff” (i.e. Blue) as a housewarming gift. The bottle was opened and shared immediately. After a long day of physical(ish) labour, whisky tastes better than Bud Light.

@OdysseusUnbound I have an open bottle. Should you ever come south to visit, and perhaps help me clear up some space ( hint hint ) I could see my way to sharing....

@Nozinan Perhaps after the seventeenth wave of Covid, we will be able to travel between zones again.

I just picked up a bottle of Aberfeldy 12. I’ve never had it, but I’m guessing it’s a fairly simple whisky. I always keep a bottle of single malt at my mother-in-law’s place and we’re going there for Mother’s Day on Sunday. I have a bottle of WT101 there but no single malt.

@RianC - I purchased a 4 pack of 20 cl bottles called the JW Collection at the duty free shop in Heathrow in 2010. The collection consisted of Black, Green, Gold and Blue. A few weeks after getting home, on a family poker night, my wife, brother-in-law, father-in-law and I tasted through the collection. Green was by far the favorite for everyone other than my wife. She loved the Gold. We were all glad that we got to try the Blue. None of us had tried it before, but we were all underwhelmed. It wasn't bad, but it had absolutely no finish. As soon as you swallowed it, it was gone; no taste what-so-ever.

I'm willing to bet and hope that your late 90's bottle would be much better than what I had.