Goose Island Bourbon County - 2024 (Chicagoland)

Wait, your Costco gets glassware?

 

Nothing wrong with discovering new things or changing interests. But I am talking about people who used to buy up sneakers to resell before getting into beer, then bought up beer to resell, then discovered they could do the same with whiskey. And so on. Their hobby is trying to flip whatever the hot new thing is.

I ran into this when I did a beer trade with a guy who admitted "I don't even like beer, just think it is fun to collect and trade". No surprise he had a huge whiskey collection and other various collections.

 

I'm surprised the bourbon bubble hasn't burst yet (trying to fit some more B's in there)

 

Beer. Bourbon. Battlestar Galactica.

 

Blanton's, Buffalo Trace.

 

If we take a “historical” approach, we see that many, many years ago there was an absolute glut of whiskey that no one knew what to do with. Whiskey didn’t have a good “look”, it wasn’t that popular, and distilleries were over producing. So, you had a large amount of extended aged products available, and some that even as a limited release would just sit around. Distilleries “tanked” (ie stored in stainless tanks) a lot of old juice for years and years, because bottling it would only add to the glut of what was not selling. They also had so much extended aged juice that they blended it into the shelf whiskies. $50 was high for a bottle and $100 was definitely very pricey. Anything above that vastly out of the ordinary. Indeed, products like 23 year aged rye under the original Black Maple Hill label were only like $119-140.

Fast forward a little bit, and suddenly whiskey became popular. One reason for this is that Scotch got more expensive, so people looked for reasonable alternatives. Popularity was helped by the internet, and also by widely available lists like “best whiskeys” and “whiskey of the year” and so on. Not only that, but people were more open and interested in some of these more expensive, extended aged products. And people liked them, and they appealed to a wider audience than your bottle of Jack or makers.

During both of these time periods, but particularly the latter, production had decreased compared to 20-30 years earlier AND whiskey was starting to get a little popular in other parts of the world, notably Asia. (Japan, a producer of Japanese whiskey, is an outlier in that they were earlier adopters of American whiskey, although products were pushed there earlier as they didn’t sell as well here. Sometimes under the same name, or under different names. Very Old St Nick was the label a lot of Van Winkle juice went to Japan under.) Suddenly the optics of whiskey also began to change - both within the U.S. and abroad; whiskey no longer carried a negative view for the consumer.

Right around 2011-2015 all the old stock was bought up and limited bottles became limited again. And stock within barrels had a high turnover rate, because it became popular elsewhere in the world also, so stock was no longer seeing extended age (which largely existed originally more out of necessity due to glut than in an interest in creating limited products). Demand far exceeded supply, and they couldn’t meet all their goals.

Fast forward a bit more and we’re almost back to present. Capacities have increased, but it takes time for older stock to accrue for limited bottles. Limited releases are still hot, and most prices are comparatively low.

Now, back at present day supply is up again. Shelf whiskies have a little more age to them than they did 3-7 years ago, but just barely. Whiskey is still hot, but supply is up and better able to meet demand. But, demand for things like BTAC (especially at $99/bottle) isn’t going away. Demand for better whiskey even at high prices has increased. So, distilleries have increased the number of limited offerings available, but also tried to come closer to secondary pricing to not leave money on the table. You also now have blender use that do nothing but blend stock they bought elsewhere (eg Barrel craft spirits), and even have $450 limited offerings. Average quality of these limited releases (market wide) has fallen, prices have risen, but the stalwarts aren’t changing. BTAC is still a great bargain at MSRP and some of the best juice every year.

At this point on a per-drink basis, whiskey is definitely cheaper, even if you buy nothing but $100 bottles, compared to the ludicrous prices we now see for BA stouts/BWs. I think that is true whether you are a 2-pounders of IPA a night kind of person or a 1 BA beer a night fan. Even if you start mixing in like 5 or 7 whiskey bottles at 300-600 a year (which is vastly more than I drink, but on par with some consumers), especially if that is balanced with more shelfie bottles at $40-80. if you are used to spending $10-20 per 12oz serving of BA beer and sometimes spend $25+ per 12oz serving, whiskey just isn’t that bad. It’s even less bad if you only have 1 or 2 drinks a week. Suddenly spending $500 on that limited whiskey to have 2 pours a month balanced with shelfie pours isn’t much different than opening 1 $40 bottle of wine a week.

The market is getting more and more saturated, which is good for consumers. But, the bubble won’t burst until there are so many limited release offerings on the market at $150-500 that they stop producing some of them, because they aren’t selling. When those extended aged whiskies start getting blended back into shelfies of lower ages (like they did back when there was a glut) - that is when you really know. We are starting to see a little of that now, but not too much. We got a little ways to go. I haven’t checked on international demand in awhile, but that also has to peter out before it can really burst.

 

Extremely anecdotal, but as @Beer_Economicus said, I think a lot of the "mid-tier whales" (stuff that used to either be held "in the back" by a lot of stores, or fly off shelves almost instantly, but not as insanely limited as, say, Pappy or the BTAC bottles) actually sit on shelves for a fair amount of time now, which is awesome. For awhile it basically felt like any somewhat-limited good (especially barrel strength) bourbon required at the very least a trip to your local fortune teller/palm reader for additional luck, but now it feels like either production is way up, demand for the "lesser" bottles is down, or a combination of both (probably the latter). Either way, like what's happened to BCBS, it's great. I have no problem with limited releases, but once they escape containment and get out to the non-hobby flippers, things start to blow.

 

Are they sitting on shelves for msrp or close to it though?

 

Yeah I guess I should've been clearer--There's always been stuff "on shelves" at bullshit prices (Weller Antique for $150, for example), but I'm talking stuff like Elijah Craig barrel proof, which used to fly off shelves, and now you can find cases sitting at MSRP in places.

 

When I first got into whiskey, I tried to find all the “quarterly, annual or biannual” large-count LE releases (Elijah Craig BP, Larceny, HM10 BiB, etc.). I’ll even go so far as to say that essentially everything I could find to read (forums by consumers to critic reviews to lists to websites where consumers can review) all pointed towards me likely enjoying these products. So much so, that I tried to buy 2 of things before really understanding how much I liked something. And by that I don’t mean 2 at one store, I mean if it took me 2 months to find one bottle, I already started hunting for a second before having gotten very far into that bottle. Essentially anything I open is open for 5 years before I finish it, even with sharing, because I (1) don’t consume a lot and (2) I do have like…25 bottles open.

I know a lot more what I like now, what I don’t, and what I think I may or may not like. EC isn’t really my bag. ECBP gives me massive heartburn. I also find it over oaked. I think EC21 is way over oaked and too dry. Perhaps EC18 is magical, but I haven’t had it. (And, yes, I recognize that EC18 and 21 are both SB products, not vatted, so bottles aren’t always comparable). Larceny BP I enjoy, but more for making a top tier old fashioned than straight. I like 4 Roses a lot. Do not enjoy turkey (in all the iterations) as much as the (seemingly) rabid advocates on the interwebs. And so on.

My point is, availability has increased for several reasons. Capacity/Supply has certainly increased (and thereby saturation), but also satiation. Anyone that was looking from 2017-2021 has one by now, and is only buying more if they like it, and hoarding is less important because availability increases. So that artificial increase in demand from hoarding has gone done, and people knowing if they like it or not has been solved, meaning the match game (bottles going to people who will consume them) has been solved, also effectively decreasing demand.

We were talking about the general public and Bc. Every time I have purchased BC on or near Black Friday, someone in a store that seems me grab it or ask for it talks about how they heard it was great, so they wanted to try it, even though they don’t know anything about it. That’s true for regular and the more expensive bottles.

 

Damn! Thanks for the wikipedia article! That's really insightful stuff.

 

Pre-orders open at The Open Bottle for the 2024 BCBS lineup and with an option for shipping within Illinois this year.

 

Feels like there's less anticipation for everything tbh. Feels like the beer scene still has some room to shrink before we hit equilibrium.

 

I'm not sure the scene is really shrinking, as there's more alternatives in this category than there ever have been. Someone must be buying them. Industry sales numbers probably show declining sales for beer overall but BCBS and the like must be a sliver of what's tracked. It's more likely that based on the past few years there's just a high level of confidence things will be pretty available so less need to speculate on how much effort to put into the chase.

 

I think part of the anticipation for BCBS was "how are you going to get it?" "where are you waiting all night for it?" "who's doing the biggest event for it?". Now you just go to the store and buy it, if you live in Chicagoland and you like beer you're probably going to buy at least one bottle of each, try it and chat about it. But the anticipation for the who, what, where, when, and why of it is gone.

 

Few care about craft beer anymore. Case in point I don’t think a single person has posted that Fobab has a date and tickets are live…

 

Wild. Usually it had it's own thread a while ago. Doesn't even look like CH sold out. It's just marked "Closed."

 

People not talking about a given event as much as they used to isn't the same as not caring. How many people do you think will attend the event? I know the top tier events on the wear coast still sell out easily every year craft centric events in general are well attended.

The market has just reached a level of maturity where the quality of beer and experience that used to be rare and exclusive is now typical and expected.

 

CH?