Cheap AND Good.

October 26, 2015 7:29 PM

Why Bottled-in-Bond Whiskey Is the Best Deal In Booze
posted by Stewriffic (57 comments total)

GAH.

I hate everyone finding out the secrets of bourbon. With the recent boom and everyone wanting bourbon, there are a few things that are still a secret on the shelf as far as price to quality, and articles like this are exposing the business.

I remember going into the liquor store a few months ago and that Old Granddad Bottled in Bond had risen $5 on the shelf. There are still 3 go-to bottles, all under 20 per fifth, that I'll never tell a soul about because I'm being greedy and want them for myself. One is under 10, one just over 10, and one right at 20. The one over 10 is a Bottled-In-Bond, and the one at 20 is actually over 100 proof. And they're some of my favorite bottles.

Now, can't everyone move off to vodka, or gin, or something else? Anything to let my bourbon get back to regular prices?!
posted by deezil at 7:38 PM on October 26, 2015 [10 favorites]

Yeah, I debated whether even to post this. I am a HUGE fan of Henry McKenna BIB, which I picked up on a lark one day. It was on sale for $20, and I stocked up. My stock is gone, and truthfully, alcohol isn't kind to my system for some reason, so I'm afraid I won't be trying the other ones.
posted by Stewriffic at 7:45 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Even my precious Old Crow has gone up like five bucks at the state store. What's a cheap drunk to do? Blends? Canadian? Aghhhhhhh
posted by Drinky Die at 7:45 PM on October 26, 2015

I came in to say exactly the same thing deezil. First they ruined Old Overholt, now Old Grandad? Baaaaaah
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:46 PM on October 26, 2015

Let's all pick a shitty vodka and drink it for a year. Then everyone will move on to Popov or whatever and whiskey will go back to being affordable. Yea/no?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:48 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'll let on to my under 10 pick. Benchmark. It's basically very young Buffalo Trace. Great mixer. Don't trust it to hold up to a splash and a cube. Not built for that. But for a mixed drink / cocktail, that's the bang for your buck.
posted by deezil at 7:48 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Rittenhouse prices have been creeping up, and bottles are a bit harder to come by lately.

*Flagged for wrecking my rye budget.
posted by notyou at 7:49 PM on October 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Let's all pick a shitty vodka and drink it for a year. Then everyone will move on to Popov or whatever and whiskey will go back to being affordable. Yea/no?

I do know a pretty classy cocktail that works fine with cheap vodka...
posted by Drinky Die at 7:49 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I started drinking old grandad in the 90s because of George Pelecanos novels. It's too late for me to change. Guess I'll just pay more. Hope old grandad enjoys my money.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:51 PM on October 26, 2015

I say we invent a fictional blend and brand that is the most sought after liquor , made in small batches by a family in the hills that never goes out in public, call it "Gentle Folks" get everyone mad trying to find it and then swoop in taking the bourbon they left behind for a song.
posted by The Whelk at 7:52 PM on October 26, 2015 [23 favorites]

I would also like to point out that this is a FINE example of government regulation.
posted by Stewriffic at 7:57 PM on October 26, 2015 [19 favorites]

The Whelk: I still expect you to have some of that bottle of Maker's I shipped to you a couple of years back. Especially at the prices I paid! ;-)
posted by deezil at 8:01 PM on October 26, 2015

Benchmark. ... that's the bang for your buck.

Seconded. Enough flavor to make a good hot toddy, cheap enough you don't feel stupid using it for such a purpose.
posted by asperity at 8:10 PM on October 26, 2015

They left out Evan Williams white label, but I'm okay with leaving it under the radar. Then again, I don't care for Pappy van Winkle's, so feel free to disregard anything I have to say about whiskey (with an "e"). And I am happy to stay out of the whole bourbon vs. whiskey debate as well.
posted by TedW at 8:16 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Man, I remember when the Rittenhouse bonded rye was like $12.
posted by kenko at 8:25 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

You can tell us your booze secrets, we are trust worthy.
posted by Artw at 8:28 PM on October 26, 2015 [8 favorites]

Not just whisky, actually.
posted by kickingtheground at 8:40 PM on October 26, 2015

I pay $50 for a bottle of Rittenhouse in Canada and count myself grateful.
posted by 256 at 8:43 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am your worst nightmare. I love bourbon. I have never heard of the bottled
in bond whiskeys. Let the liquor gentrification begin.
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:46 PM on October 26, 2015 [24 favorites]

Jefferson would probably have been against bonded bourbon.
"Imagine what gon' happen when you try to tax our whiskeyyyyy"
posted by casarkos at 9:21 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

All I ever learned about hard liquor is to buy vodka the cheapest vodka that comes in a glass bottle and starts with an S. Plastic is too cheap, and the S means it's probably from Europe, where everyone is either an artisan or lives in a castle.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:34 PM on October 26, 2015 [10 favorites]

Even my precious Old Crow has gone up like five bucks at the state store. What's a cheap drunk to do? Blends? Canadian? Aghhhhhhh

Hey, there's still Four Ro-

*gets bundled in to an unmarked van and disappears forever*
posted by Itaxpica at 9:46 PM on October 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

I'll just stick with Ancient Situation
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:47 PM on October 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

I like it here in Australia but if there's one point where America has the overwhelming advantage it's the cheap liquor. Spirits under $22USD do not exist here, let alone good ones.
posted by solarion at 9:49 PM on October 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Y'all gotta try Mellow Corn, it's a steal. It actually tastes like bourbon, my friend and I were totally blown away by this.

Hate the new Rittenhouse label, but I'll drink it anyway.
posted by Standard Orange at 9:58 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Shoot, the hipsters are already ruining Mellow Corn
posted by Standard Orange at 10:13 PM on October 26, 2015

Metafilter: Let's all pick a shitty vodka and drink it for a year.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:29 PM on October 26, 2015 [7 favorites]

There is a FANTASTIC guide to bourbon's family tree in The Kings County Distillery Guide to Urban Moonshining: How to Make and Drink Whiskey. (It's on pages 72-73 in my copy.)

I think one of the main reasons distilling is illegal is that the government used to depend on liquor taxes for the majority of its income. This hasn't been the case for years, so why are we still prevented from doing science at home? Obama should declare home distillation legal the way Carter legalized home brewing. There are already a bunch of small distillers here, but I can't wait to see what people do when they see a pile of apples and think, "I could ferment this." It's a tradition as old as Johnny Appleseed. (What, you think he was promoting apples for HEALTH?)
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:30 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Rick: Excuse me, bartender. Can you make me a dumb grandson pep talk? It's one part lame advice about stuff you know nothing about and a lot of vodka.

Bartender: Mm-hmm. I have a lot of vodka.

Rick: Then I'll take one of those. I don't need the rest.
posted by mikelieman at 10:35 PM on October 26, 2015 [10 favorites]

For many years our work-based whisky society's secret staple bourbon was Old Weller Antique 107. Dirt cheap and stunningly delicious. Then it disappeared from the shelves and the last few bottles doubled in price. Insiders told me they were shipping everything to China, probably re-branding as a high-end bourbon. Which, to be honest, it deserved. Dunno if and when they might bring it back here and at what price point...
posted by Hairy Lobster at 10:44 PM on October 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

And the rum drinkers laughed.
posted by special agent conrad uno at 10:54 PM on October 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

The OWA107 is why I keep my damned mouth shut now.
posted by mikelieman at 11:00 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I pay $50 for a bottle of Rittenhouse in Canada and count myself grateful.

Why would you do this when you can get a 1/2 gallon of Alberta Premium for the same price?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:10 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Old Grand-Dad was a steal through the 90s. I always figured bonded meant over 50%.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:31 PM on October 26, 2015

I'm coming to steal every one of your perfect underrated whiskeys. Fear me.
posted by naju at 12:50 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

A couple flats ago, my local off-licence had a brilliant pricing scheme for the liquor on its shelves.

They had a vast array of things in such a tiny space, and everything behind the counter was priced just a little under what you'd see anywhere else. Bright neon stickers with the prices on them too. The staff had little understanding of the stock, and often I'd spend time jostling among the US, English, Scottish, and East Indies pronunciations of my favourite single malts to get the right one.

But like I said, you'd see good prices all over the back shelf. It felt like a real find! So a £40 bottle of scotch would be there for £38 and you'd feel like you HAD to buy one, right?

Behind that bottle was one priced at £40. If I had company and ran through my £38 bottle sooner than usual, I'd sometimes have to buy that £40 bottle to re-stock. behind it was a bottle labeled £42!

It makes perfect sense: the price structure automatically reacts to the pressures of demand on a fixed supply, and only needs to be adjusted when re-stocking. At that point you can also examine the prices you're paying to your supplier and shift all of the price stickers the same way.

But so long as I stuck to something obscure, and didn't show up too often, I got that £2 discount…
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:09 AM on October 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

Oh, also, I mourn the 20cl bottles of cask-strength Caol Ila. That was the perfect emergency peat, and diluted perfectly into an unbeatable bargain. The 20cl bottles are standard strength now, and the maths just don't work out any more.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:11 AM on October 27, 2015

Oh, also, I mourn the 20cl bottles of cask-strength Caol Ila.

I know you can't see me right now, but this is me glaring jealously at my phone.

*glares*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:30 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

This hasn't been the case for years, so why are we still prevented from doing science at home?

I know some home distillers, and it's actually pretty dangerous to distill if you don't know exactly what you're doing - the methanol/blindness concerns are largely overblown, but it's still pretty easy to blow up your kitchen and yourself if you're not careful.

For many years our work-based whisky society's secret staple bourbon was Old Weller Antique 107. Dirt cheap and stunningly delicious. Then it disappeared from the shelves and the last few bottles doubled in price. Insiders told me they were shipping everything to China, probably re-branding as a high-end bourbon. Which, to be honest, it deserved.

Unfortunately, the answer is way less sexy. Weller is made with the same mash as Pappy Van Winkle, the most overhyped bourbon on earth, and some blogger put out a recipe for a decent Pappy facsimile made by blending Weller Antique and Weller 12. The recipe spread like wildfire, and since then getting ahold of Weller has been almost as tough as getting ahold of Pappy itself.
posted by Itaxpica at 6:09 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Shoot, the hipsters are already ruining Mellow Corn
posted by Standard Orange at 1:13 AM on October 27 [+] [!]

So, hipsters are other people? a la sarte?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:35 AM on October 27, 2015

Alright, everyone ready for my Manhattan recipe? Seems as good a place as any if the word on Rittenhouse is out. I'm not claiming this is revolutionary (mostly because it is not), but I love it so much. All three ingredients bring so much complexity to the table.

A couple liberal dashes of Fee Brothers whiskey barrel bitters right on the ice
2 parts Rittenhouse Rye 100
1 part Carpano Antica Formula

*Stir* (or shake, I don't care, but if you do shake it, keep the bitters out and put them on the fresh ice in a glass)

If I've made them recently, I add one or two brandied cherries, but the drink doesn't need the fruit.
posted by staccato signals of constant information at 7:09 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

> Plastic is too cheap

Not even when I was a broke-ass student who didn't care much about what the alcohol I was guzzling entirely to get shitfaced tasted like did I buy booze that came in plastic bottles.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:28 AM on October 27, 2015

I'm not sharing what it is, but there is a seriously bargain-rate bourbon that rhymes with Pebble Fell that has the same profile as Maker's, for about half the price. Are you gonna sip it neat all evening? Probably not, but in eggnog or toddies or an old fashioned or hell, even the occasional manhattan, it does just fine.

Reminds me I need to stock up for eggnog season.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:32 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I read this "A couple liberal dashes of Fee Brothers whiskey barrel bitters right on the ice" as "a couple liberal dashes of Fee Brothers whiskey barrel bitters right IN THE FACE" which made getting the other proportions exactly right a challenge, but a rewarding libation regardless.
posted by notyou at 8:12 AM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

There is a FANTASTIC guide to bourbon's family tree in The Kings County Distillery Guide to Urban Moonshining: How to Make and Drink Whiskey. (It's on pages 72-73 in my copy.)

Here's that family tree, for the curious.

For my money, the Heaven Hill family is still a great value. We'll see if that holds up.
posted by letourneau at 8:51 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

You'll all hate me, but they all taste similiar mixed with Coke..
posted by Matt C at 9:18 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

The best value in booze is rotgut vodka run through a few layers of coffee filters and activated charcoal.
posted by Athene at 10:31 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

The best value in booze is rotgut vodka run through a few layers of coffee filters and activated charcoal.

I tried that once in college, and not only did the vodka still wind up pretty shitty, once you counted the price of the britta filter we ruined it would have been cheaper to just buy Smirnoff from the get-go.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:05 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Well, that's because you did it wrong, silly. Brita filters are even trashier than 5 O'Clock. You really need a layer cake of aquarium charcoal and coffee filters.

Oh, and btw, I actually love bourbon, and drink vodka almost never. But cheap vodka + filtration is a better deal.
posted by Athene at 1:24 PM on October 27, 2015

I can't wait to see what people do when they see a pile of apples and think, "I could ferment this."

They can already ferment the apples. Cider is good.
posted by kenko at 1:40 PM on October 27, 2015

And applejack is even better!
posted by Itaxpica at 2:16 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm not sharing what it is, but there is a seriously bargain-rate bourbon that rhymes with Pebble Fell that has the same profile as Maker's, for about half the price.

I wish it was called Pebble Fell, only reason I don't buy it is I refuse to glorify what the actual name is associated with.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:11 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Fiercecupcake, I've actually never tried that one. Time to head to the store.
posted by deezil at 6:26 PM on October 27, 2015

Potomac Avenue: I came in to say exactly the same thing deezil. First they ruined Old Overholt, now Old Grandad? Baaaaaah

Wait, what? It's been ages since I've been to a liquor store, did people discover Old Overholt like I've been fearing for years?

rum-soaked space hobo: he staff had little understanding of the stock, and often I'd spend time jostling among the US, English, Scottish, and East Indies pronunciations of my favourite single malts to get the right one.

Do you have any Lap-hair-ohg? How about Glen-orange-y? No actually, that's when you ask for Highland Park. Among all the other reasons—it's the single malt that sounds like the bottom shelf and tastes nearer the top.
posted by traveler_ at 9:44 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

The real secret? Be cheap and willing to try dodgy-looking or uncool booze. I got into rye after a liquor store near my now-wife went out of business and we cleaned up on Old Overcoat and Jim Beam Rye (which is good enough) almost a decade and a half ago. Sure, we could afford one of the really nice, insane deal Scotches, something that at 50% off still ran about $60, but we walked the rest of the yard with $5 fifths and a single red Rossi. I remember stumping around for rye forever — no, a real Manhattan — and I'm glad to see the explosion even if I kinda hope some of the Olde Tyme Artisanal whiskey kitsch dies in a mustache fire.

"Let's all pick a shitty vodka and drink it for a year. Then everyone will move on to Popov or whatever and whiskey will go back to being affordable. Yea/no?"

Psst — my current push is looking for cheaper grain spirits, but cheap-ass vodka works for this: You can buy juniper berries and a handful of other herbs for literal pennies, turning your Crystal Palace into a quick gin that'll make you never want to pay for Hendricks or Sapphire again. I know hipsters are back to selling kits for it again, but fuck, you can find a hippy store that sells all this shit in bulk and all you're missing are your filigreed labels. (I even make it in mason jars, which I'm trying to surf the backlash wave since they've finally settled to a stable price.)
posted by klangklangston at 11:26 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

If things get really bad we can always resort to Space Booze!

"Comet Lovejoy lived up to its name by releasing large amounts of alcohol as well as a type of sugar into space, according to new observations by an international team. The discovery marks the first time ethyl alcohol, the same type in alcoholic beverages, has been observed in a comet. The finding adds to the evidence that comets could have been a source of the complex organic molecules necessary for the emergence of life.

"We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity," said Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory, France, lead author of a paper on the discovery published Oct. 23 in Science Advances."
posted by Hairy Lobster at 11:43 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

By the by, I must say that despite using third-party neutral grain alcohol, Sipsmith distillery (in my back yard) is phenomenal.

Their damson vodka is basically the best umeshu I've ever tasted. Their vodka is for sipping, not slamming. I took the tour, and it was amazing.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:00 AM on October 28, 2015