Private Barrels have long jumped the shark???

Once upon a time, a private selection sticker on a bottle of bourbon actually meant something. Private selections were made by people ‘in the know’, who could identify a honey barrel and deliver something exceptional when compared to the standard release. Given the explosion in popularity over the past few years, private barrel selections are now available to nearly everyone. The problem is, most people haven’t yet figured out what really happens behind the scenes. This became most apparent to me recently when I started seeing a horrible trend develop: People are literally listing private picks for sale as ‘private pick’ without even mentioning the group or store responsible for them! If that sounds crazy, consider all the people snatching them up at secondary prices.

Often the ‘picker’ only gets like 3 to choose from (probably not the best stock either), so it’s not like they can really dig deep and find true values.

What is your reference point?