Pappy

Pasteton

Pasteton

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Friend just had a kid and wanted to get him a pappy van winkle. Almost got hornswaggled into paying 800$ for an ‘old rip van winkle’ which is NOT the same thing and is a 50$ bottle.
from googling I am getting a confusing laundry list of prices, with msrp for pappys seeming to be in 100-300 range, but actual sale price skyrocket into the multiple thousands. It’s almost like the nvidia of whiskeys or something.

my question, as a bourbon novice, is are there any arm chair whiskey experts on here and if so what should I realistically should be paying for a bottle of pappys and is there a certain year I should gun for? For example a 10 yr bottle is cheapest but if it’s so young it may be shit compared to a far better 12 yr, etc?
 
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Burren

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Honestly, it's not worth the cost. As a novice you won't know the difference between a Pappy and a Maker's 46 or a Woodford Double Oak, or a Willett Pot Still, or _______ or _______. What you're buying is hype and a name, but not the appreciation.

Bourbon generally isn't aged like Scotch. You will find a LOT of really good 4-8 year old Bourbon. Some is older, but that's not the measure of quality or taste.

If you want some good affordable options, try these:
- Weller Antique 107 (any Weller really)
- Col. E.H. Taylor
- Rock Hill Farms
- Noah's Mill
- Michter's Straight Rye

The list can go on and on. The 15 and 20, and 23 year old Pappy's are just not going to be worth you hunting down, unless you think the name is more important than the drink/experience.
 
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Pasteton

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ok thanks. my friend will appreciate the taste a lot more than me but i figured its more hype than anything else
 
alavaz

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Do you know what all he has in his collection? Blanton's always make a really nice gift. Great looking bottle and tastes good as well and in NC you can pick it up for about $70.
 
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MrHolland420

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Evan Williams is the way to go for price and decent quality. If they mix their whiskey with Coca-Cola or anything other than neat or on the rocks, buy them Black Velvet.
 
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Aychamo BanBan

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Hey man! I haven't looked in a couple of years, but the oldest bottles of pappy were going for like $2300 on the secondary market.

Specifically to answer your question, the 15 year pappy tends to be a favorite, and a lot of people think the 23 year pappy is overly oaked (means it spent too long in the barrels and has too much oak flavor from the wood). So you don't have to buy the most expensive one.

So the super nice bottles of bourbon, you will basically never see them in the store, ever. Never. They arrive at the store, and the owner takes them out and then will auction them off or give/"sell" to his best friends, or put up for a ridiculous price and they will still be bought immediately. And no bottle of bourbon is worth $2300. The shit just isn't that good.

Burren Burren had some nice suggestions, but even his first two suggestions you'll basically never see on the shelf. There are supposedly facebook groups for buying bottles on the secondary market.

If it were me, I would go buy him one of the $100-ish bottles of WhistlePig rye, or one of the $100-ish bottles of any of the special Wild Turkey offerings.

One thing I do when I'm at the store and something looks interesting, I pull out my phone and google the name of the bottle and then add "reddit bourbon" on the end to look up reviews on reddit.com/r/bourbon to see how people are generally receiving it. It's saved me from buying a few turds. There's a lot of whiskey that is expensive and is shit.
 
MrHolland420

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Falxy-US said:
Hey man! I haven't looked in a couple of years, but the oldest bottles of pappy were going for like $2300 on the secondary market.

Specifically to answer your question, the 15 year pappy tends to be a favorite, and a lot of people think the 23 year pappy is overly oaked (means it spent too long in the barrels and has too much oak flavor from the wood). So you don't have to buy the most expensive one.

So the super nice bottles of bourbon, you will basically never see them in the store, ever. Never. They arrive at the store, and the owner takes them out and then will auction them off or give/"sell" to his best friends, or put up for a ridiculous price and they will still be bought immediately. And no bottle of bourbon is worth $2300. The shit just isn't that good.

Burren Burren had some nice suggestions, but even his first two suggestions you'll basically never see on the shelf. There are supposedly facebook groups for buying bottles on the secondary market.

If it were me, I would go buy him one of the $100-ish bottles of WhistlePig rye, or one of the $100-ish bottles of any of the special Wild Turkey offerings.

One thing I do when I'm at the store and something looks interesting, I pull out my phone and google the name of the bottle and then add "reddit bourbon" on the end to look up reviews on reddit.com/r/bourbon to see how people are generally receiving it. It's saved me from buying a few turds. There's a lot of whiskey that is expensive and is shit.
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Just a response to your overly oaked flavor from the 23 y/o. Never spend a single cent, penny, yen, fuck Chinese money, pesos, Euro, pound sterling, or actually just don't ever buy Johnny Walker Double Black! What a waste of money unless you like the taste of moss, all mosses, Spanish moss, peat moss, anal hair dingle berry moss all in your mouth. I know it is Scotch Whisky, but I must warn people that Scotch is the most vile liquor ever made. 99 reasons for Scottish people to be happy, but Scotch ain't one.
 
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Aychamo BanBan

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MrHolland420 said:
Just a response to your overly oaked flavor from the 23 y/o. Never spend a single cent, penny, yen, fuck Chinese money, pesos, Euro, pound sterling, or actually just don't ever buy Johnny Walker Double Black! What a waste of money unless you like the taste of moss, all mosses, Spanish moss, peat moss, anal hair dingle berry moss all in your mouth. I know it is Scotch Whisky, but I must warn people that Scotch is the most vile liquor ever made. 99 reasons for Scottish people to be happy, but Scotch ain't one.
Click to expand...

Man, I have never been able to get into scotch. I've only ever tried a few different ones, and didn't care for any of it. I'm pretty sure I know what you mean about the moss / peat taste. I find it repulsive!!!!
 
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MrHolland420

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Falxy-US said:
Man, I have never been able to get into scotch. I've only ever tried a few different ones, and didn't care for any of it. I'm pretty sure I know what you mean about the moss / peat taste. I find it repulsive!!!!
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Repulsive is the correct word for dirt liquor. My uncle used to drink J&B all the time on the rocks. I'm fine with Evan Williams, prefer Evan over Jack.
 
Aychamo BanBan

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MrHolland420 said:
Repulsive is the correct word for dirt liquor. My uncle used to drink J&B all the time on the rocks. I'm fine with Evan Williams, prefer Evan over Jack.
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I've never reached that far down for bourbon before ;) (I'm kidding, being arrogant on purpose). But I'm going to grab a bottle and try it out.

There's a bottom shelf bourbon called Mellow Corn which has a cult following. I've never found a bottle in Texas so far or when I visit family in Oklahoma. Dying to try it!

It's funny because bourbon is so popular, even bottom shelf shit can be hard to find. People got obsessed with Old Grand Dad 114 and that was hard to find.

Whats your go to $30-50 bottle?
 
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MrHolland420

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Falxy-US said:
I've never reached that far down for bourbon before ;) (I'm kidding, being arrogant on purpose). But I'm going to grab a bottle and try it out.

There's a bottom shelf bourbon called Mellow Corn which has a cult following. I've never found a bottle in Texas so far or when I visit family in Oklahoma. Dying to try it!

It's funny because bourbon is so popular, even bottom shelf shit can be hard to find. People got obsessed with Old Grand Dad 114 and that was hard to find.

Whats your go to $30-50 bottle?
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Give me your honest opinion after you drink some, I usually just toss some cubes in, then the Evan , and finally I do usually mix with just carbonated water(seltzer), not tonic water with quinine, that's for gin my friend.
 
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MrHolland420

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I'm sure you knew that, but I couldn't complete my haiku, really wanted too, actually I'm tired and my benadryl has yet to knock me out yet.
 
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Aychamo BanBan

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MrHolland420 said:
Give me your honest opinion after you drink some, I usually just toss some cubes in, then the Evan , and finally I do usually mix with just carbonated water(seltzer), not tonic water with quinine, that's for gin my friend.
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I get off in 7 hours and will grab a bottle on my way home!
 
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MrHolland420

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evanwilliams.com

Evan Williams Bourbon | Straight Bourbon

BOURBON DONE RIGHT
evanwilliams.com evanwilliams.com

Handle of Smooth Bourbon or grab a bottle of 1783. Shit grab a bottle of both, they really are great for their price. My suggestion is just go ahead and pick up a 10 year black label and a 1783. To be honest I've never had the single barrel. At least I've never bought it.
 
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Burren

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MrHolland420 said:
Just a response to your overly oaked flavor from the 23 y/o. Never spend a single cent, penny, yen, fuck Chinese money, pesos, Euro, pound sterling, or actually just don't ever buy Johnny Walker Double Black! What a waste of money unless you like the taste of moss, all mosses, Spanish moss, peat moss, anal hair dingle berry moss all in your mouth. I know it is Scotch Whisky, but I must warn people that Scotch is the most vile liquor ever made. 99 reasons for Scottish people to be happy, but Scotch ain't one.
Click to expand...

Uhhh...You do know that not all regions of Scotch has peat or smoke in it, right? There are hundreds of Scotchs that are quite mild and light. That's like saying all burgers are crap because the ones from McDonald's suck. There are some absolutely amazing Scotchs out there, but America gets only a fraction.

I'm a little worried you think Evan Williams is top-tier and water/ice/seltzer is OK to put into a good whisky (whether Bourbon, Scotch, or Irish). Evan Williams is for putting into coke when someone doesn't give a shit.

But hey, everyone has different tastes. That's why there is so much out there.
 
Aychamo BanBan

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Burren said:
Uhhh...You do know that not all regions of Scotch has peat or smoke in it, right? There are hundreds of Scotchs that are quite mild and light. That's like saying all burgers are crap because the ones from McDonald's suck. There are some absolutely amazing Scotchs out there, but America gets only a fraction.

I'm a little worried you think Evan Williams is top-tier and water/ice/seltzer is OK to put into a good whisky (whether Bourbon, Scotch, or Irish). Evan Williams is for putting into coke when someone doesn't give a shit.

But hey, everyone has different tastes. That's why there is so much out there.
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Hey man, I actually don't know shit about scotch. What would be a decent light one to try, that has no peat flavor in it at all? What would differentiate a light scotch from a typical bourbon in a flavor profile?
 
Burren

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Falxy-US said:
Hey man, I actually don't know shit about scotch. What would be a decent light one to try, that has no peat flavor in it at all? What would differentiate a light scotch from a typical bourbon in a flavor profile?
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There are five regions for scotch production and only one of them - Islay - is heavy with peat and smoke. Highlands is maybe 50/50 on peat/smoke. The others are generally light, mild, and sweet (with some divergence, but not a lot).

I'd suggest single malts rather than blends, if you'd like to explore. Blends - like Johnny Walker - are more complicated and don't appeal to everyone. I'm not a fan of JW at all and prefer singles.

Safe, non-peat/smoke brands would be: Glenlivet, Macallen, Balvenie, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenmorangie (highland that isn't peat/smoke), Glenkinchie, Girvan, Linlithgow (these 3 are lowland and are very light, but rare in America to see lowland, of the 5 regions).

If you do want to explore a little and you can't find something locally, try this site out: Scotch
 
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Burren

Burren

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Falxy-US said:
Hey man, I actually don't know shit about scotch. What would be a decent light one to try, that has no peat flavor in it at all? What would differentiate a light scotch from a typical bourbon in a flavor profile?
Click to expand...

I didn't address your second question, sorry: a light scotch is going to be sweeter and milder than a typical bourbon and should have more fruit, caramel, and cookie notes to it. Now, its a little hard to describe things like this because everyone's nose and taste buds are different.

But, I'll try to give an example: Maker's 46 is a good mid-tier bourbon. It's easy to find, its quality, and it tastes good. Compare that with a light scotch like Glenmorangie 10 year old. The Glen is a good, mid-tier Scotch. It's quality and its easy to find in America and its affordable. The Glenmorangie will taste sweeter and won't "burn" or be as "sharp" or "spicy" as the Maker's 46, which itself is already a somewhat mild Bourbon.

If you'd really like to get into whisky as a hobby, I'd suggest some research: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralfystuff

Also, perhaps make a budget for yourself each month. $40-$50 each month or every other month. Pick up a new bottle and explore. Don't go overboard and don't get too much to start. Only YOU will know what YOU like, but it will take time to explore. Don't fall into hype and marketing if you can help it. The only exception to this - for me - is Lagavulin 16. It genuinely is a fantastic Scotch and I love it (but I also enjoy smoke/peat the same as I love rye bourbons).
 
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Pasteton

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all this is way over my depth. I guess I’m just looking for a bottle that says ‘ I wanted to get you something really special ‘ without saying ‘I’m a patsy that doesn’t know shit about whiskey’
 
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