If you ever want to see a stock with an absolutely unbelievable long term (40 years or more) track record for performance, look at the long-term performance of Brown-Forman.
LOL. Hopefully this spring.
I enjoy Bourbon and Rye but my head doesn’t in the morning so I try to not, though I have many bottles in the collection. So, not buying much as I go through them incredibly slow, so not impacting my wine buying.
Also, pricing for the obviously in demand stuff is insane. Perhaps Burgundy pricing is a good parallel, I don’t know. But case in point, I would guess that 6-8 years ago I bought a bottle of Black Maple Hill Rye, 23 years old, cask 7, from a liquor store in NYC. I can’t recall the price I paid, but I think it was between $200 and $300. I still have some of that bottle left today (to my slow drinking ways I mentioned above) and I tried some on X-mas after not having any for at least a few years. Excellent, it was. I then looked it up online and wine searcher found it for me for $4 to $5k per bottle. I guess they stopped making it and it’s super rare and in demand. Nothing wrong with a free market but my long-winded point is it seems prices for this stuff are loco. So I guess if I wanted this type of thing it would certainly impact my wine buying, but I’m not going there. I can get almost as much joy out of a simple bottle of Blantons or Basil Haydens or Dickely Rye for under 50 bucks.
I also began having bourbon headaches a few years back. That, and a well timed trip to Napa & Sonoma, deepened my wine habit.
My beverage journey over the last twenty years has been coffee, craft beer, scotch, bourbon and now wine. Not sure what’s next…
Tangential subject. Was talking with a bartender/manager at a high end spirits bar/restaurant yesterday. I asked him if the 25% tariffs were impacting scotch sales. He said it is weird. His scotch sales have completely tanked, but…his bottle costs have not gone up. He was not sure if the importers were absorbing the tariffs or if there is a lot of pre-tariff landed stock. He thinks people have shifted to bourbon assuming scotch prices were going up. He also said his bourbon business is going through the roof, a lot of it pretty high end stuff.
ha, better check that current Blanton’s price and recalibrate!
Uh oh…maybe it’s been a few years since I bought my last bottle of Blantons!
I am not sure I have ever bought a bottle of bourbon for myself. I know I don’t own any now and haven’t at any time in memory. So no.
It’s more, but not much more.
No for me. We have plenty of bourbon in the house, as well as rum, but it has not impacted our wine spending. As mentioned above, storage limitation and age are more of a factor than anything else for our wine buying.
Ed
$80-90 is a good price now and hard to find in LA under $150-200.
I just bought two in Connecticut for $60 each.
Most know that Blanton’s is allocated. If sold at suggested retail it’s about $60. Winesearcher (not pro) starts at $119 and goes up significantly from there.
$80-$90 is NOT a good price. There’s stupid secondary market stuff happening, but regular retail has not gone up nearly that much. Nor should it, because Blanton’s is really not worth that kind of money.
Bourbon has no impact on my wine spending. I mostly drink Eagle Rare these days, and occasionally splurge on something nice that’s usually still under $100. I just make a point to buy what I want when I see the right price.
Scotch guy here, has no relationship at all to my wine spending. Admittedly, my Scotch spending pales in comparison, but I do drink it regularly.
Wow those are crazy prices on Blanton’s. While I haven’t bought a bottle in 2-3 years, I have seen it on retail shelves in Northern NJ within the past 6-9 months for way under the wine-searcher prices. Can’t recall exactly but I would say under 75 bucks.
Bourbon / Rye secondary market has been getting progressively more silly for last 2-3 years as it has extended to lots of standard issue bottles like Weller, Blantons, ETL, eagle rare, etc. That being said, there are a very small number of truly transcendent USA whiskeys that deserve to be priced at levels of CA Cults or even top GC Burgundy. wild turkey 12/101 from 1980s, old grand dad 114 and BIB from national distillers, older ryes (van winkle pre 2012, willett 20+ years, Handy 2006). I drank some willet 24/110 a couple years ago and had elements consistent with a transcendent dry Riesling. I generally switch back and forth at home but have so much already that budget has shifted back towards wine. Over nice dinner out it’s wine…at party or bar, it’s whiskey
This!
And you’ll have a few glasses of a wine at dinner, but who drinks the same volume of Bourbon?
Prices for Blanton’s varies by where you live. Same with Weller and other such producers. My friend in Ohio can get them easier and for way less than I can here in Cali. I’ve seen regular Blanton’s go for $65-80 and store picks go from $100+ (as of a few weeks ago).
My affection for collecting wine has decreased over the past several years. Since I seemingly need to have some sort of hobby that requires chasing acquisitions of some form, bourbon has become the vehicle for me now. My recently stumbling upon a mother lode of “dusties” isn’t entirely uncommon in the bourbon world, while an equivalent score in the wine world is far more rare IMO.