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Friday, August 7, 2009

Good Whisky Values

My friend and colleague John Hansell has an excellent whisky blog, What Does John Know? The answer, of course, is quite a bit, given his 20+ years of passionate whisky tasting and collecting, and 18 years of publishing Malt Advocate magazine. John's completely wired into the whisky business here and in Scotland and Ireland, and Canada, and Japan... You guys think I get samples? John gets samples.

The blog post I particularly want to bring to your attention is one he called "What are the good whisky values?" He asked his readers, and there are some excellent suggestions for finding good whisky bargains in a market that's split between continuing increases in price and a buying public that's hurting for bucks. If you'd like to spend a little less while continuing to drink well, check it out.

9 comments:

Natty Ho'ert said...

Agreed that Virginia Gentlemen is a good buy as is Pikesville Rye if you can find it and Dickel also if you can find it. Heaven Hill and JW dant good too.

Lew Bryson said...

I pick up some Pikesville in Maryland when I can; need to do that soon, I'm out! Finding Dickel can be an issue at times, agreed.

JP said...

Natty is right on about all those great Heaven Hill Brands like Pikesville supreme and Dant. Good stuff for the money. I think all the gentlemen offer good value Virginia, Kentucky and Country. A couple of years ago Penna state stores ran a special on Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 year I think it was either 30 or 50% discount right around the holidays that was a great value. Here is a tip next time you are in Germany pick up a bottle of 4 roses bourbon for whatever reason it is cheaper there even net of FX.

Anonymous said...

I find it curious that a lot of my craft beer friends who are very experimental with their beer and basically eschew the big popular brands do the opposite with liquor-- buy Jack Daniels or Other big name whisky or (worse) vodka.

Lew Bryson said...

You need to straighten them out, man, apply a little peer pressure!

Anonymous said...

Done. They are getting straighter every day, without proselytizing!

Bill said...

Anony and Lew, I rarely stray from whiskies and whiskeys I like because of the cost/time factor. To be stuck with a pricy bottle for a few months filled with something I don't like is a hard row to hoe. I don't get to bars with decent selections that often to experiment with new whiskies/whiskeys. At least beer comes in single servings, enabling for easier experimentation.

Well, I mean, single servings outside of Pennsylvania, anyway. Sorry to touch on a sore subject...

Anonymous said...

Hi,
My mother inlaw has a bottle of O'Brien Special Reserve 12 Year aged from scotland and it has no date to show when it was made, it is 40% alc and i'm just trying to find out more about it? Apparently they purchased it in Australia approx 16 years ago but i have no other information, i'm trying to find out it's value if any and of course how long further i should age it. I don't know how old it is properly.. anyone able to help?
regards
cara

Lew Bryson said...

Cara,
First, once whisky is in the bottle, it's not really aging any more. It's just getting older, not changing. And these days, there's one way to find out what an older bottle is worth: put it up on eBay as a 'historical bottle' and see what you get. Or...you could open it up and drink it!