site banner

Friday Fun Thread for November 17, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Get at some Basil Hayden. Much better than Bulleit and only a little more expensive.

Depends what you like; bulleit being low sweetness and rye forward makes it fairly unique in the reasonably priced range of big marketshare bourbons, IMO. I find Basil Hayden has a slightly overripe bannana fermented funk to it that I enjoy in rum but find distracting in whiskey (could be my pallet being oversensitive though, or just a bad bottle.)

Basil is indeed a sweeter bourbon, but that is my preferred taste. I don’t dislike bulleit, but if I’m going for something without the sweetness, I would tend toward whiskey.

Interesting - there seems to be some regional pricing going on with that one. Where I lived before, it was (and double-checking, still is) a full $20 pricier than Bulleit, but here it is only about $10 more. I'll have to check it out.

Bourbon prices are the one thing that in my lifetime I really, really feel inflation. Bourbon was the thing when I started drinking, because for the quality it was so cheap. Relative to Scotch why was so heavily premiumized, or Canadian whiskey that was so boring.

I feel like the better deal these days is Japanese single malt.

McAfee's Benchmark Old No 8, is a very good value bourbon with a long name.

Surveying my shelf at the moment, my favorite thing I have in the sub-$50 range is probably Eagle Rare. Depending where you live, it can be a pain in the ass to find, but it's a damned good whiskey for $40. Right on that line, Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel is genuinely excellent and better than most of the more expensive bottles I have.

I've had Eagle Rare and quite liked it, but spot-on in terms of availability. I've only snagged it as a consolation prize in a Blanton's raffle.

Yeah, the only times I've gotten bottles are at the "instant rewards" thing that my local liquor store does where the allocated (but not super rare) bottles will just get placed in a cabinet where you need to spend $X on something else to get them. Not a bad deal all in all since there's usually something else I'd like anyway, but it's wild how scarce some of these things have gotten.

The Blanton's hype is similarly silly. It's a good whiskey! But the secondary market prices are just stupid. If available at MSRP, they're a good buy, but I cannot imagine spending the $150-200 they're going for at aftermarket sellers.