Trey Hendrickson Update

[Sled21]

(5 hours ago)SunsetBengal Wrote: A friend of mine is a bit of a player in the bourbon trading circles. What he does is buy good stuff that is common to his local store by the case, and then uses it as trading currency for people who live in markets where what he has stock of is scarce. On another note, the whole business of only shipping selected brands to selected areas seems a bit like market manipulation for the purpose of creating a "false scarcity" in my mind.

Yes and no. The scarcity of brands like Eagle Rare and EH Taylor being "allocated" are indeed manipulation. The 20 and 23-year-old Pappy's really just come down to having to age it so long. 20 years ago, whiskey is what hard men and alcoholic bar maidens drank and were pretty much looked down on as the "fabulous people" drank their martinis, margaritas etc. Then the bourbon craze hit and all of a sudden everyone wanted bourbon, everyone was an expert, and Buffalo Trace's marketing team made people think Pappy was the best thing since sliced bread, only they can't produce more, because even if they ramp up production, it has to sit in a barrel for 12-23 years. The BT sold the Blanton's brand to Japan, and most of that is going overseas. But any brand that is 4-7 years old ought to be readily available now, especially since the craze is reportedly stalling. I'll personally be glad when they move on to the next best thing, like these celebrity tequilas, and get out of my bourbon market.
You can buy Blanton's, ER, and EH Taylor at the distillery for retail, but you have to wait each morning and stand in line with the taters to find out what the offering is, then you can only buy one bottle per brand every three months. It's ridiculous, you see the groups on FB and they go stand in line to get whatever the bottle of the day is, and don't even start their car before taking a picture of it and listing it for sale. Just driving the price up for everyone. I won't play those games, too many good brands most people don't even know about that are readily on the shelf for 50-60 dollars.