Which bottle did you just buy and why?

An odd couple of 200ml bottles of the Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

Accidentally won these in auction at a bid price that is a fraction of the retail price.

@sengjc Lucky. I'd like to try JWBL (I like the JW Black and I liked the JW Platinum) but I'm not paying $300 CAD for a 750ml bottle. Can we expect a review at a later time?

@chrisbator , nice score! At $60, I probably woulda bought one, surreptitiously tasted it in the parking lot to confirm it's as good as reputed, then gone back in to clear the shelves.

@Ol_Jas Never thought of that. I like the way you think.

I thought I was done buying whisky for a while, but I couldn't pass up some great deals from Astor Wines with the Father's Day special I just posed on the Steal of a Deal thread. (Plus, free shipping?!?! It doesn't get any better.)

•Six Isles malt blend: $34

•Lagavulin DE 2000: $72

•Springbank Local Barley 11: $136

•Hazelburn 9 Barolo CS: $72

@Ol_Jas, is there a minimum for free shipping as I didn't see any such thing on their main page

@DevD , I think it said the minimum order amount was $99, and that it's for new customers only.

I want to say I'd recently heard they did that, but I didn't realize I was getting free shipping until I was completing my checkout. Surprise!

Wild Turkey 101 x 2 down to my last bottle and Amazon daily deal £18

Buffalo Trace same situation £15

Makers Mark none in cabinet £18

Missed out on Eagle Rare 10 year at £20 as I was at work which I would have bought several at that price.

@OdysseusUnbound I once did a side by side tasting of the black and the blue... if you are a fan of jw in general, you'll like the blue. It felt like a more refined, smoother edged version but still had the hallmark jw flavors. I don't think it's worth the money though.

@Ol_Jas I'm heading back today for something else... another one of these may jump in my cart ;)

@Ol_Jas Excellent price on the Lag DE.

Just completed my 4 bottle order to my sister in Nova Scotia, despite the shipping charge it still dwarfs everything at the LCBO in price and selection :

1. Teeling 21 Silver Reserve...$205 Cad or $151 US

2. Bowmore DC III...$110 Cad or $81 US, extra bottle for later, may still get another

3. Glen Garioch 1999 Sherry Cask batch 30, 56.3%...$130 Cad or $100 US

4. Glen Garioch 1998 Wine Cask Matured...$130 Cad or $100 US

Not bought, but given, by one of my basketball buddies who runs a professional catering company, partial bottles of leftovers from his parties:

1) my own very first bottles of a) standard Jameson, b) standard Buffalo Trace, c) standard Famous Grouse blended Scotch, and d) Henry T McKenna NAS 40% bourbon, and...

2) standard 43% ABV Laphroaig 10 and Glenmorangie Original, and...

3) six miscellaneous gin products

Why did I accept these? It is always good to have options!

After tonight's basketball game ended at 10:30 pm, three of us did a tasting lasting until 1 am at my friend's house of Macallan Rare Cask, Glenlivet 15 French Oak, Elmer T. Lee, Bernheim Original Wheat whiskey, Esperanto Extra-Anejo Tequila, W.L. Weller Reserve bourbon, Zacapa 23 yo Solera rum, and Brugal Reserva Extra-Anejo Rum. I expected none of this when I went out to play basketball tonight at 9 pm. Life is good.

@OdysseusUnbound

Wow, those prices are crazy! Sure, I'll try my hand at a review when I get round to opening one of the two bottles. Mind you, I have had Johnnie Walker Blue before and find that I still enjoy single malt whisky over blended scotch.

Wouldn't be too soon though, as I have quite a number of bottles open at the moment - I like to limit the number of opened bottles at any one time to about 5.

@sengjc 5? Wow, considering the stuff I've seen you post about buying, you must have amazing will-power.

I know a couple of people with upwards of 50 bottles open at any given time...

@Nozinan

Hehe. I don't really drink a lot.

nozinan & sengjc: Yea; I am one of those people. Currently have 47 open bottles. Even after finishing 21 bottles so far in 2017. Not in a hurry to finish either the bourbons or world whiskies as I have been providing a number of informal tastings for family and friends using those types. Ideally, I would love to get my open count below 30 bottles. I like to think of each emptied bottle as a labor of love :-)

@Nozinan you can add me to that list as well. I would think that most people with a large collection have 50+ bottles open.

Here is a relevant thread:

connosr.com/how-many-bottles-do-you-have-o…

Just bought (and opened) a bottle of Talisker 10. It's normally $100 CAD here in Ontario, but my friend was in Québec this past weekend and the SAQ (Québec liquor store) had a sale on. Thus, this bottle only cost me $67. Score !

@Nozinan yes, I remember that thread, I wish I could get a case of Wine preserver at a decent price.

@OdysseusUnbound Score indeed! It's now over $100 after tax in BC. I picked up a litre at Calgary Airport duty free in February for $86.

@OdysseusUnbound : nice work. $67 (USD!) is about the going rate for Talisker 10 at most places south of the border, so I think you're doing pretty well to get it for that price up north.

(As far as I know, K&L holding steady at $50 is the best price anywhere for Talisker 10—at least on this side of the Atlantic.)

Just like @OdysseusUnbound and @BlueNote I have bought a bottle of Talisker 10 yo . It was the last one on the shelf in the liquor store. It was surrounded by NAS bottles of Talisker. Talisker Skye was among them and it has a price tag of 30 euro. I guess I will never buy Skye from Skye. On the website of the retail chain Talisker 10 yo is sold out. So I felt an urge to buy my beloved Talisker 10 yo. I am a little afraid that Talisker 10 yo will disappear gradually.

Talisker 57 degrees is a nice one though, but the price is twice as expensive as Talisker 10 yo. I paid 36 euro, which is a reasonable price. I strongly recommend to stop buying NAS Taliskers and go for the real McCoy including Talisker 18. Well, what is your opinion about NAS bottles of Talisker?

A recent story on Marketplace segment on NPR Radio about changing world of bourbon, use of secondary/black markets, and so on. Not likely much new to most Connosr members, but worth a listen if bored:
marketplace.org/2017/06/…

A down-state buddy recently stopped into a SW Michigan liquor retailer and the discussion turned to the recent allocation program for Weller Antique 107, as well as the less recent allocation of Pappy products. The owner/clerk of this establishment mentioned that he generally gets 5-6 bottles of Pappy each year. Unlike some, he does not keep a call/wait list for the bottles. Nor does he break the seal like one of the owners in the NPR story does. He just quietly places them on his store shelf. And when they sell out (usually within a day after the first bottle is purchased), he is out until his next shipment. So my buddy has hope that perhaps his odds have increased slightly. Now it is a matter of timing, and not where you fall on a list, or in a lottery. For him, like many, it is about coveting something difficult to obtain, and not about any opinions about the quality of Pappy's. He has had the opportunity to sample on numerous occasions the bottle of Pappy 15yo I won in a lottery two or three years ago. And we both sampled Pappy 21yo at a charity event. Both were enjoyable for the hype, and less so for being outstanding bourbons. I am pulling for him to obtain his own bottle. May luck be in his favor. But until then, he will continue to have the opportunity to sample from mine.

@NamBeist I'm not buying any NAS scotch until there is more transparency from distillers. I guess it would stop being NAS, then, but so be it. My decision has nothing to do with taste and everything to do with integrity. I want to know what I'm buying. Stripper names (Ruby, Sienna, Amber......is that offside?) and trendy Scots-Gaelic words are just marketing ploys.

@OdysseusUnbound I'm very upset with your characterization of the Macallan colour series as "stripper". It's entirely off-side. .

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Everyone who "knows" what's what refers to it as the "pole-dancer" series.

@cherylnifer, thanks for posting the article on the bourbon re-sale market. It is worth noting that the liquid (no pun) secondary market in which bottles are frequently actually sold has pricing which is perhaps 60% of the asking prices seen on an engine like wine-searcher.com. George T. Stagg and Pappy 15 likely frequently do transact at $ 500 per bottle on the liquid informal secondary market, but they likely transact with much less frequency at the $ 1,000 per bottle asking prices reflected on wine-searcher.com.

That gentleman pictured in the article, Bill Thomas, is as real a deal as a deal gets. With respect to American whiskey, he knows more, and owns more, than just about anybody else. And he is always ready to buy, or trade for, your premium bottle at relatively good prices.

@NamBeist, as regards Talisker, 57 degrees North (bought at the right price) is my go-to, with a large back-up reservoir of both that one and of Talisker 18 year old for more refined contemplative moods. Talisker Skye does not compete with these for quality, but I would not hesitate to buy a bottle of the NAS Talisker 175th Anniversary if I saw it at a reasonable price. I had some of @newreverie's 175th Anniversary in Albuquerque, and it is absolutely top drawer, up there with the best. I like the NAS Talisker Port Ruighe quite a lot too. Sure, I'd like also to drink some Talisker 20, 25, and 30 year old whenever I can, but these days those "are gonna cost ya". I am sure that when the day comes that I go through multiple bottles of 57 Degrees North and 18 year old that I can content myself with bottles of an above-average batch of Talisker 10. (my first bottle of Talisker 10 was "ho-hum" for the first 7 months)

@Victor I know that some NAS Taliskers are great like Talisker 57 degrees North . However, they cannot compete with Talisker 10 in my humble opinion. The prices of the NAS bottles are just too high considering their quality. Storm, Dark Storm and especially Skye cannot impress me at all. That is why Talisker 10 is always the first choice. It is an absolutely great whisky. I have never had a bad batch. Its price is very reasonable indeed.