About once a week I get an email about the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection (BTAC) and the Van Winkle release. The best I can do is reassure people that they aren’t alone in their frustrations. They are easily the hardest bottles to get a hold of, buyers always outnumber sellers, and more and more people seem to be entering the market so it is easy to understand why so many people are curious about how to get a bottle.

My advice? Close the phonebook, X out of your Google map’s “liquor store” search, and abandon the scorched earth policy that has you running into brick walls everywhere you go. This approach might work for dusty hunting, it might work in other states, and it will get you a bottle or two of the larger releases like the Parker’s Heritage, Old Forester Birthday, and even this year’s Four Roses, but it is the absolute wrong approach to finding a BTAC or Van Winkle in this state.

Colorado does not load any one store with an unfair portion of the BTAC or Van Winkle releases. Most stores only get enough bottles for a portion of their customers based on the volume that store sells, which means “enough” is hardly enough at all. Truth is, most stores have these bottles earmarked for a long time customer well before it comes in. While you are out searching through the shelves of every liquor store off of I25 and I70, you are loosing the one thing that might guarantee you a bottle come the fall: relationships. These bottles are behind a counter one day a year, and without relationships, you are just another face in a long line of seagulls. Mine. Mine. Mine.

A bottle will slip through the cracks here and there and make it to a shelf, but I wouldn’t count on luck alone to find a bottle. When you traverse the state looking for a bottle, that is exactly what you are doing. The best way to put yourself in the right place at the right time is to put yourself in the shoes of the people selling the bottles.

Understand that these stores care far less about these releases than you do. They stand to make about $10 per BTAC, maybe $20 to $50 on the Pappy 20 and 23, and only get a handful depending on their size. Unless they go the route of 20-20 Wine Merchants, alienate their entire repeat customer base, and mark their prices to outer atmospheric levels, than these bottles will affect their bottom line very little.

Big box stores are going to get their sales one way or another, and normally have store policies that dictate how they give their bottles out. They work in bulk, kegs, and online sales, so even though they get the biggest shipment of Pappy and BTAC, it is an inconvenient blip on their radar.

The pure number of people looking to the big box stores for a bottle makes a wait list or lottery unfeasible. These lists have been a huge headache in the past, so the quickest and least painful way to push out these bottles is a first come, first serve model. Within an hour of opening their doors, everything is sold and a small portion of a long line of people leave happy. That means the scorched earth approach wont help, but a relationship with the store might help you figure out what day and at what time you need to be camping out in front of their store.

Small stores, “bulletproof” stores, and newer strip mall stores stand little to no chance of getting even just one bottle. Most don’t even know what a Pappy or Stagg is. If you think the rarest bourbon in the world will be at Betty Sue’s Wine & Spirits next to your Super Cuts, than have at it.

Medium sized stores are a different story. They might get four or five random bottles from the BTAC and Van Winkle line, but they care very much about who gets them. If you think that is unfair, consider that these stores get calls all damn day about Pappy Van Winkle and the BTAC, plenty of which are from out-of-state area codes. People prop their doors open, lean in, careful to not step inside, and ask for Pappy while their car is still running at the curb. All the store employees hear is, “Mine. Mine. Mine,” and they hear it all year long.

These stores see people on the hunt, and they know that if they were to sell a “seagull” a bottle, they would never see them again. They have very little to gain monetarily from a case of BTAC, but what they can use it for is to reward and shore up their current repeat customers. Most liquor stores get a majority of their sales from beer and wine, with any sales coming from liquor being a welcome cherry on top. Repeat customers that buy liquor from above the bottom shelf is a rare thing, but a customer that spends $100 a month on bourbon is a customer worth keeping. Repeat customers are the people that keep the lights on, and most medium sized stores have very few repeat bourbon customers compared to the number of seagulls. If you don’t think a store is willing to set a bottle aside once a year to reward a $1,200 a year repeat customer, than you really need to meet your local liquor store owner.

Sure, not every store gets allocation, so you need to find the right store. Look for releases like EH Taylor, Bowman, Elmer T. Lee, or any private barrel purchase done by the store. This indicates they cater to high end bourbon drinkers, they have someone behind the counter that cares about whiskey, and they have a relationship with Republic, the distributors that put out the BTAC and Van Winkles.

To get the ball rolling, special order a bottle of Weller 12 if it’s not on the shelf, ask if they get Abraham Bowman releases, complain about how ridiculous WhistlePig is, but do it all at one store. When they learn your name, they will remember it come fall, and everyone is happy.

Filed under: Blog of Bourbon