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Bourbon Allocation Season is upon us...
It is that time of year again, when all the limited edition whiskies are released. The last five years in the whiskey world have been crazy. The depletion of old stock and rare offerings have become increasingly limited and allocated only to accounts who support other less desirable products within the distributors or producers portfolio. Long gone are the days when you could stroll into a well stocked liquor store and find a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle on the shelf. Despite volume of whiskey sales being up, our allocations continue to get smaller.
We wanted to devise a system that is fair to everyone. Unlike some retailers, we do not sell these whiskies at secondary markup prices, nor do we do raffles or auctions. Our business is built on the longstanding relationships we have built with our customers. These 'allocated' whiskies are relationship whiskies, and we try to spread around as much of that love around as possible to as many customers as we can. The best way we have determined to do that is by collecting 'Top 5' lists from our best customers, and then allocate the whiskies out in a way so that as many people as possible get something off their list.
Taking this into account, the metric for determining these allocations to our customers is complex and dynamic. We save some for whisk(e)y club members, our best whiskey clients or other top wine and beer clients. Support of our PlumpJack Private Barrel Selections is a strong metric as well, because purchasing barrels helps us get allocations. Sometimes the relational value of a customer is not about the amount of money they spend but about the immeasurable. Some bottles we just hold for the future.
When it comes to some of the rarest of the rare bottles (Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, Older Pappy Van Winkle) we sometimes only get single bottles at a time! We ask that you take that into account when requesting your ‘Top Five’ and choose wisely. If you request all of the top marks with the smallest allocations, please realize your chances of fulfillment go way down because of the limited amount of whiskey and strong demand in the pool. Please request bottles that are commensurate with your relationship and level of support in our program, it will save us all time and increase the likeliness of getting a bottle.
Please understand that just because you've given us a 'Top 5' list does not guarantee you will get an allocated bottle. If your name is not currently in our system, then we are not keeping track of your purchases and we regretfully cannot give you a bottle. If you do not currently have a relationship with us, please stop in or gives us an email! We'd be happy to recommend some of our favorite whiskies or barrel selections. Don't forget to continuing checking the blog for a list of our allocated whiskies for the year.
We greatly appreciate your understanding in this complicated process. Without your support we would not be able to do what we do. We welcome any questions or requests you may have. You can email our whisk(e)y buyer Joshua.
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