2 Part Question on BA Dark Lord Variants

I think it would go like this if you rank in order of desirability:

Cognac Muerte
Bourbon Muerte
Brandy
Cognac
Bourbon
Bourbon vanilla
Brandy vanilla
PvW

I personally would never trade for the Muertes though. Some people might have different orders too, I'm curious to see what others think.

 

Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Lord (Pappy Van Winkle) - 1. 2011; 2. 8 (T-8)
Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Lord Imperial Stout - 1. 2012; 2. 7 (4)
Bourbon Barrel Aged Vanilla Bean Dark Lord - 1. 2012; 2. 8 (T-6)
Brandy Barrel Aged Dark Lord - 1. 2011; 2. 6 (1)
Brandy Barrel Aged Dark Lord With Vanilla Beans - 1. 2011; 2. 8 (T-8)
Cognac Barrel Aged Dark Lord - 1. 2012; 2. 7 (2)
Cognac Barrel Aged Dark Lord De Muerte - 1. 2012; 2. 7 (3)
Dark Lord De Muerte - 1. 2011; 2. 8 (T-6)

Explaining my rankings, real rankings are the first number, as they are all going to take a whole lot to acquire, but if you made me rank them simply against each other, those are in parentheses. And of course, it's all just IMHO.

 

Desirability-wise, I think the above from standardcherry is pretty accurate. The Bourbon Muerte, however, is a weird one. It's by far the lowest bottle count (165) and from 2011. It's usually the hole in most DL voltron tastings, aside from the '06 oaked growler. It's very difficult to find.

 

12 bourbon (3)
12 bourbon vanilla (7)
12 cognac (5)
12 cognac de muerte (1)
11 pappy (6)
11 brandy vanilla (8)
11 brandy (4)
11 de muerte (2)
rankings are more desirability than ease of finding in my opinion...

 

To piggy back a bit on this thread, since Bourbon '12 and Pappy seem substantially different in their attainability, has anyone had them side by side? Is the Pappy really that much better?

 

Yes, and no, respectively. In fact, I personally preferred the 2012 Bourbon fresh to the 2011 PVW fresh (from memory) and definitely to the 2011 PVW side-by-side. That said, there was a pretty large bottle count difference, with nearly 1000 bottles of 2012 Bourbon and only 400-ish (maybe more/less?) of the 2011 PVW. Also, many people preferred the PVW to the regular bourbon, I seem to be more of an outlier in that regard.

 

Really? Those seemed to fly like hotcakes once they got re-released at FFF XV.

 

Agreed with this lineup. While the 2011 De Muerte isn't that good, it has the lowest bottle counts and seems to be the one most people are missing. Brandy and PVW each require a ton to get them done. Brandy is just above Bourbon Vanilla due to the Vanilla variants being highly sought after and you could buy Brandy at two different times since they had it at DL day and at the anniversary party.

 

Hmm, maybe you're right. Brandy was the only one that I had and (eventually) traded, so knowing me it probably just seemed like it wasn't as desired cuz I sat and stared at it for hours on a daily basis...

 

I think you could get some bites with that potentially. It's hard to say. I'd think you could get Bourbon, Cognac, Cognac Muerte, and possibly Brandy, and maybe Bourbon Vanilla. I dont' think that would pull Brandy Vanilla, PVW or De Muerte. If you want one of the harder ones, I'd post for that first and then see if you get any bites. The fact that most of those are low bottle counts helps. As someone noted, the other thing is to wait after DLD as a fresh influx of bottles comes out.