Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@Hewie , I agree with @Nozinan : That's a great whisky at a great price. I've never seen anyone dislike Springbank 12 CS, and for me it's one of the few whiskies I regularly re-buy.

If you've never had a Springbank before, though, I'd recommend getting yourself a 10 first. It's the lighter, zippier, starting point for their range. (And I personally prefer it to the 12, but that's just a matter of taste—objective quality between the two is about the same, I'd say.)

@BlueNote , that's a good pick-up on the Glenlivet Nadurra 16. And $84 doesn't sound high to me at all. Granted, that's a little higher than it used to sell for when it was still current, but if you look across the whole market, $84 for a 16-year-old CS OB single malt of high repute is very good relative value these days. Imagine a whisky with the same specs coming out from virtually any other Scottish distillery these days, and guess what the price would be!

@Hewie , the 12 CS was my first Springbank - to be fair it took a year before I really liked it but that may have been me and not the whisky... my second bottle didn't last a year.

Thanks to the encouragement of @Nozinan to throw all financial caution to the wind and sacrifice my family's economic well-being on the altar of peaty goodness, I just bought two bottles of Laphroaig 10 CS for the low-low price of $58 USD each.

Bonus: A little shelf-digging revealed that this place was stocking a selection of batches: 6, 7, and 8. I think my other one in the bunker was a 6, so I went for a 7 and 8. Woo-hoo!

@Ol_Jas that's great, in Ontario we have the choice of batch.........?

@Astroke You have a choice of batch 5 or 7, thats all I have...

The what: Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Rye.

The why: I recently made some returns of a couple of bottles I shouldn't have bought. If you return something without a receipt to the LCBO, some stores will issue a gift card while others will make you get something on the spot. Turns out this particular store was one of the latter. My local store doesn't carry JDSBR, so when I saw it on the shelf in the London location I was at, I heard @paddockjudge's words ringing in my ears (It is damn fine whisky... For Pete's sake, buy some!) and I decided to heed his words and take the leap.

What: Benromach 10 (no, not the 100 proof, sadly)

Why: I didn't really need another bottle, but with the LCBO employees' union threatening to strike, I had to play it safe. I also picked up a few tall-boys of Innis & Gunn Original for the same reason.

@OdysseusUnbound I applaud both your choices. I very much enjoy my Benromach 10. I have to admit it's not as powerful and delicious as the 100 proof, but at the price they want here it's a little too much. If you've not tried the 100 proof it will be an excellent excuse for me to open a bottle during that "trip to Toronto".

I have no purchase plans before the strike. I don't drink beer much, and I think I have enough scotch to last me through any strike the LCBO could possibly have, plus enough to share around. If the LCBO happens to list a must-have, then a strike will allow me to plan my strategy around grabbing it as soon as the all-clear sign goes. Plus, if I have time I'll join some picket lines... hopefully they'll remember my support when it comes to the special bottles...

An LCBO strike? I guess that means higher prices at the LCBO in the future. Is that even possible?

@Victor Higher prices are definitely possible, but not because of the strike. First, LCBO employees aren't asking for all that much. A lot of it is about decreasing "the full time hours for part timers" and making them full time, and stuff like that.

Plus, because the LCBO is not "for profit", prices are based on no rational thought...so an increase in cost will have no bearing....because no one who sets prices is paying attention...

@Nozinan The general public still seems to think the LCBO employees are angry about wages....even though they've been clear about the fact that job security and "permanent part-time" hours are the big issues. I won't get overly political here. The prices in Ontario are criminal, but that's not the fault of the LCBO employees, imho.

@OdysseusUnbound not criminal, just uncivil.

Criminal law is federal jurisdiction.

Alcohol and civil law are provincial jurisdiction.

And yes, the LCBO prices are definitely un-civil.

@Victor , yes, they just listed Balblair 1990 at $296 cad. I received the 1990/2015 Balblair from my sister in Nova Scotia 2 months ago for $165 cad. So yes, the LCBO gouging knows no limit.

@sengjc, 5 open bottles at a time? Really? You are satisfied with a 5 bottle choice of whiskies? I have 7 bottles of Ardbeg open right now.

@Victor

Yup. 5 bottles of different styles - seems to work ok for me.

@sengjc , I'm with you. I prefer having fewer bottles open at a time. I like "concentrating" on a smaller number of bottles over a shorter period of time. If nothing else, it helps you mentally attach bottles to episodes in your life, like "Oh yeah, that G&M Mortlach: Christmas 2016!"

@sengjc Me too. Our household is on a pretty tight budget so whisky is a luxury for me. Having too many bottles open at once starts to look a little indulgent. One day I'll enlarge the collection but for now it works for me having just a few options to choose from :)

A few bottles of the Starward 10th Anniversary, two of the "ones to drink" and two of the "ones to keep".

A limited release vatting of various casks across their first ten years. As a Melburnian, I am quite proud of the fact that this fledgling homegrown distillery has come such a long way since.

Australian whisky may lack the sophistication and tradition of their Scottish counterparts nor the finesse and elegance of their Japanese counterparts but as far as whisky goes, I am proud to say that we are world class.

The what: Pike Creek

The why: I've liked Pike Creek well enough in the past, but it's a whisky that to me had a bit of a dual personality disorder, in that my enjoyment of it differed quite a bit from pour to pour. So when I finished my bottle sometime last year I opted to not replace it, but in November they switched the finishing barrels from port to rum, and upped the ABV from 40% to 42%, and ever since then I've been curious to try it again. Well, turns out the LCBO is having it on sale now, 25% off, so I decided to grab a bottle. Time will tell if it too has a dual personality.

Just was in Tokyo and picked up some Chichibu whisky, both Ichiro's Malt Double Distillery, and the Mizunara Wood Reserve. I actually got two bottle of the MWR, and realized I should have purchased another DD, but I guess I will have to get that on my next trip.

@ajjarrett I forgot to explain why.

Reasons:

1. I enjoy both, and even though they are NAS, they are Unchilled filtered and natural color, as well as 46% ABV.

2. They aren't available, as far as I know, in the US.

3. I am not sure when I will go back to Japan, so I didn't want to miss a good opportunity to pick up something I enjoy drinking.

@ajjarrett , have you had mizunara-matured whisky before? That's probably the main little corner of the whisky universe I'm still really interested in getting my first taste of.

@MadSingleMalt "have you had mizunara-matured whisky before? That's probably the main little corner of the whisky universe I'm still really interested in getting my first taste of."

Yes, I have had whisy that had matured in Mizunara. The first whisky I had, and still enjoy that has been matured in Mizunara, is the 12yo Yamazaki. Actually, the 12yo Yamazaki is a combination of spirit that had matured in Mizunara, European Oak ex-sherry casks, American Oak Ex-bourbon casks, and maybe another type of cask. The second whisky that I enjoyed that was matured in Mizunara was the 12yo Chivas Regal Mizunara. It is an exclusive sold in Japan only product, as far as I know.

Now, I had the Ichiro's Malt MWR a little over a year ago, when I took a week long trip to Japan, and had it at the Nikka Blender's Bar. I asked the bartender to give me something new, which has matured in Mizunara and he pulled this off the shelf. I ended up enjoying; however, I didn't buy a bottle of it while I was there. I was too focused on Nikka and Suntory (Yamazaki/Hakushu) products at that time. So when I knew I was going to be spending a few nights in Tokyo on my way home, I made sure to pick up some Ichiro's Malt. The price, I think, was very reasonable. I got both the MWR and the DD at 62.00 USD per bottle (700ml)

@ajjarrett , nice. The first time I ever heard of mizunara wood was in a review of some forgotten Japanese whisky on the old Malt Advocate blog back when John Hansel wrote the posts and the blog was still good. He described it as smelling & tasting "like temples" and I've had an itch to taste some ever since.

Do you think that characterization is on the money?

Kilkerran 12 - After reading all the rave reviews, I had to try it. Plus it's from Cambeltown.

Springbank 12 CS Batch 11 - Needed to restock one of my favs.

Talisker 18 - Needed to restock one of my favs plus found a great price on it.

@MadSingleMalt " nice. The first time I ever heard of mizunara wood was in a review of some forgotten Japanese whisky on the old Malt Advocate blog back when John Hansel wrote the posts and the blog was still good. He described it as smelling & tasting "like temples" and I've had an itch to taste some ever since.

Do you think that characterization is on the money?"

Let me begin by saying that Dave Broom also uses the "like temples" when describing Mizunara, when he retold (an a video) about his travels to Japan. I have been to Japan six times now, and I have been to a variety of temples, and some of the nose and taste does have a bit of the temple like aromas. This might be because what people usually smell are the incense sticks made from Mizunara, which are burning, and so we might get that from a charred Mizunara cask. However, I suspect the there is a chemical reaction between the cask and the spirit that creates a few different (or additional) flavors and aromas, compared with the burning of an incense stick made from Mizunara.

I just bought a Highland Park 18 "on the spare of the moment" (as my mom would say). Impulse buy!

Why? 'Cause the store had it marked down to a ridiculous $69!!! I woulda cleared the shelf, but it was their last one. The clerk tells me it's never sold well there.

A little context, from which you might draw no meaningful conclusion yet find interesting none the less: This was a at a big-box grocery store with a pretty meaty liquor department, including a decent scotch selection. Some higher-end stuff behind glass (like those General Taylor bourbons and Redbreast 15). And a shelf of full of dusty trophy bottles behind the counter (Macallan Whatever, JW Blue). This was the same place where I was so excited to find the HP on sale for $105 just a few weeks ago. And now $69! What a country!

@MadSingleMalt Haha, that's awesome. Sweet score! I'm not the biggest fan of the HP18 (compared to others in the same price bracket) but I wouldn't blink twice before I snatched it off the shelf at that price either!

@MadSingleMalt I don't think I would have acted differently... It's $200 Canadian here so that's less than half the price after currency exchange.

Even the 12 is just slightly cheaper than that.

The only thing I would have done differently is that I would have filed it under Steal of a Deal.