Even though bottle shops dedicate increasing swaths of real estate to America's native spirit, threats of a bourbon shortage continue to loom over us. Considering the time and space necessary for proper barrel-aging, it's nothing short of a small miracle that many exceptionally crafted bourbons retail for well under $40. Others command more than 10 times that price. Are they necessarily 10 times better, or is the bottle just 10 times prettier? Here are some factors to take into consideration before investing in a rare or premium bourbon to add to your liquor cabinet.
Be mindful of hype. At this point, virtually every whiskey drinker is aware of Pappy Van Winkle and how impossible it is to obtain. Searching online yields bottles of the 23-year expression for $200 — empty bottles. If you want a filled one, good luck: You'll need about $4,000 and a prayer. The very same whiskey retailed for $150 just six years ago. The only thing that's changed is that Anthony Bourdain called it the best whiskey on the planet, and irrational hype snowballed from there. Even younger varieties, like Lot B — aged for 12 years — can fetch $500 at your local liquor shop. As has been well-documented, it's pretty much the same exact juice as W.L Weller 12-Year — a bourbon made at the same distillery, aged for the same number of years in the same exact warehouse. When consumers caught wind of tangential connection, the Weller doubled from $50 to $100, seemingly overnight.
Age plays a role, of course. But many casual drinkers fail to realize that older isn't always better. The "sweet spot" for bourbon is generally the 10-15 year range. Anything older than that risks taking in too much flavor from the oak, drowning out the gentler notes of the grain that went into the whiskey itself. Sorry Pappy 23 lovers, but most bourbon distillers would prefer a younger, and far cheaper, alternative.
Limited bottlings can be a smart move for collectors and connoisseurs. Take, for example, Knob Creek's 2015 Belmont Stakes commemorative release, a one-off that was on the shelves for a few weeks with a label that will never be reproduced. The booze inside is exactly the same as everyday Knob Creek bourbon, a sensationally complex, 9-year-old whiskey well deserving of its $35 price tag. After American Pharaoh won the Triple Crown, bottles of the special release flew off the shelves. Unopened, its value is likely to increase greatly as a collector's item. Here, though, as is so often the case in high-end spirits, the bottle is more important the bourbon itself.
If you truly enjoy what's in the bottle, scarcity of supply should be your primary concern. Sometimes a shortage is artificially manufactured, but other times, a stash of exclusive barrels is "uncovered" in the back of a rickhouse, allowing enthusiasts to obtain an old expression that, once depleted, will never be available again. Such is the case with Blade and Bow 22-Year. Undeniably clean and vanilla-rich, it slept for over two decades in Louisville's now-defunct Stitzel-Weller Distillery, and has already been named "Best Straight [aged two years or more] Bourbon" at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition earlier this year. Already $179 a bottle, imagine how it might be valued once it's gone for good.
As its appeal continues to broaden among the general population, all bourbons run the risk of becoming scarce. So you might as well appreciate your $30 bottles while they last. You can also do your part to stave off disaster: Discourage your vodka-drinking friends from ever sampling the brown stuff.
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