by cowdery » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:11 pm
Just when I was beginning to think I am the most cynical person here.
Buffalo Trace has a program that allows retailers to "hand select" what will be their exclusive, single-barrel offering of a brand that, otherwise, is not single barrel. In every case, the distillery provides samples from barrels that have already been determined to match that particular brand's profile. So, they are single barrel and they are whatever the person doing the selecting liked best of the samples offered, so how desirable that "hand selected" bottle is will be directly related to how closely your tastes parallel those of the person doing the selecting.
It's ultimately subjective but if the person doing the selecting is a good judge of American whiskey, it will be good. If they aren't, at worst it will be about the same as any bottle of that brand that has not been hand-selected.
I have on my counter now a "hand-selected" bottle from Cork and Barrel, another emporium in John's neck of the woods, of Weller Antique. I must say, I'm not crazy about it. That doesn't mean it's bad or that the person who selected it doesn't know what he's doing. It just means our tastes don't exactly coincide.
Do I feel like I got a bad deal? Not at all, I got to taste something a little bit different, maybe even a little bit outside of my comfort zone, and that's a big part of the fun of exploring whiskey.
I salute BT, by the way, for this program. I think it's fun for the retailers and way cool for we consumers. Not incidentally, it also ensures that the retail will buy a minimum of 21 cases of a particular expression, so it's not exactly a bad deal for BT and the distributor.