Save your money on the PoH. It's meh for the price.

There is still a lot of Birthday Bourbon out there. It got delivered in Austin last week, and is typically "behind the counter". I picked up a bottle yesterday, and will likely get another this week. BTAC has not been delivered to Central Texas stores yet.

Willing to pick up a bottle for a fellow Ag?

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...Then he tried to sell me on some Bow and Blade, saying it's hard to find outside of Kentucky, but I didn't bite.

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Walked into a random Spec's on Friday and saw it.

Found 2 stores in Houston today with some BTAC and for $500 a pop I walked back out the door

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Found 2 stores in Houston today with some BTAC and for $500 a pop I walked back out the door

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F-ing stores are charging a half a G now!!! What the heck is going to happen on the secondary market?!?! What did they have, Stagg?

Stagg and WLW were $500 and Handy was $600

I'm sorry, but that's so crazy it's laughable.

And sadly some idiot will pay it and validate that store owner's decision.

The first store is one next to my office that I go in weekly. When he told me he had the 3 bottles and the prices I just laughed. He said he looked online and that's the prices he saw them going for. I said those are secondary market prices and no thanks

I've now heard that twice about Handy being priced higher. Tells you the shop owner is not informed.
There were over 10,000 bottles produced of Handy this year versus roughly 3,000 of both Stagg and Larue Weller. It's the most plentiful of the Antique Collection out there.

Any tips on where to find an OFBB? Im sure it's late in the game but have heard others say they are seeing it around.

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Found 2 stores in Houston today with some BTAC and for $500 a pop I walked back out the door

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F-ing stores are charging a half a G now!!! What the heck is going to happen on the secondary market?!?! What did they have, Stagg?

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Funny thing is, that's about what they're selling for on the secondary market as well. I had a store in Katy that I used to buy from and as recently as two years ago they were selling BTAC for $150/bottle. Last year they upped the price to $450. No thanks.

I can get a bottle of Stagg on the secondary for less than $400

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I can get a bottle of Stagg on the secondary for less than $400

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Depends on where and who you buy from.

Wondered when BTAC would hit the shelves for crazy prices in Houston. I'm still hoping the mom and pop shop I got one from last year will give me a call this week. Bought a Stagg for retail... Doubt that'll happen this year.

My mom and pop shop hooked me up last week, so it does still happen.

I have a few mom and pops that will be hooking me up too. I believe in the free market so if they can make that kinda cash, more power to them. It just sucks for us guys that want to score some brown water.

Damn, that's just sad. Happy I got a lot of this stuff back when it was $75 and sat on shelves for awhile. There's no point in running this stuff down due to markup.

I know Specs sent out their allocations of Handy and Saz18 - anyone know if they have sent out the other BTAC as well? Happy to get a Handy (insert giggle here), but still hoping for more.

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Save your money on the PoH. It's meh for the price.

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I have to disagree. At MSRP ($90) it is a really good bourbon, especially considering $20 of that goes to support ALS research. A friend brought a bottle of it and a bottle of ER17 from the BTAC on a trip and we all preferred the PoH over the ER.

To the guy asking about it, I found 3 bottles of it on the shelf of a liquor store in Durango a few weeks ago and picked one up (at MSRP), so there are probably still some bottles out there in the wild if you look around.

I got a PoH and wasn't overly-impressed. I can find equivalent value in something far less expensive.

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I got a PoH and wasn't overly-impressed. I can find equivalent value in something far less expensive.

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Eh...could be due to the fact that they are single barrel bottlings, so not all bottles will be from the same barrel. The one we had was fantastic. I haven't opened the bottle I picked up yet, but I'll be happy to come back here and eat crow if it doesn't live up to the memory of the first one I tried.

Interesting. If there's any chance you'll be back by Durango I'd gladly pay for you to pick one of those bottles up for me. Most of the places I visit are big metropolitan cities (Houston, DC, NYC, San Francisco, etc.) and its just upon chance if I run into something. Last year in SF I was able to score 3 bottles of Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch and found some secondary priced stuff in San Diego. My wife is getting a little tired of me searching for bourbon on our trips! I'm definitely still searching around though.

Promise of Hope was one of the first "good" bourbons that I had with my dad and brother in law and it's more about the memory of that trip and the fact that part of the proceeds go to ALS which makes it taste better to me.

I've got a bottle of 2015 GB Cowboy that I'd consider trading for a premium bottle or two. Any interest or suggestions?

Trade you a blantons for it

In seriousness though, I haven't heard if that was any good or not yet. Anyone tried it?

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I know Specs sent out their allocations of Handy and Saz18 - anyone know if they have sent out the other BTAC as well? Happy to get a Handy (insert giggle here), but still hoping for more.

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What pisses me off about Specs is the lack of transparency. I have no problem with them rewarding their top customers... just tell me that instead of being rude. Total wine has my money now... besides 2 local stores.

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I know Specs sent out their allocations of Handy and Saz18 - anyone know if they have sent out the other BTAC as well? Happy to get a Handy (insert giggle here), but still hoping for more.

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What pisses me off about Specs is the lack of transparency. I have no problem with them rewarding their top customers... just tell me that instead of being rude. Total wine has my money now... besides 2 local stores.

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True, but at least they aren't trying to charge $500 a pop like some others. (As far as I know)

I know someone earlier made a comment about it being the frequency, not the amount spent to get to the top off the list. The manager I spoke to said that it was the total amount spent that determines the rankings, FWIW.

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What pisses me off about Specs is the lack of transparency. I have no problem with them rewarding their top customers... just tell me that instead of being rude. Total wine has my money now... besides 2 local stores.

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True, but at least they aren't trying to charge $500 a pop like some others. (As far as I know)

I know someone earlier made a comment about it being the frequency, not the amount spent to get to the top off the list. The manager I spoke to said that it was the total amount spent that determines the rankings, FWIW.

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I totally agree with the frustration with Specs, but honestly it is a matter of who you ask. I don't think there is an intentional lack of transparency (maybe by individual store managers), but there is an obvious lack of knowledge by the employees. For example, in relation to the question about Specs points... I asked the local Specs how many points I had and they indicated it was >1MM. Now roughly speaking as I understand points are relatively 1 to $1. Clearly I buy too much booze, but there is no way I have that many points. So I called the Smith Street store asked the same question and got a much more accurate answer. Long story short, if you have a question call the Smith Street location or find a good source at a local store.

I'll still yield to a points system first, or you'd better have a good personal relationship with a store owner. A small shop delivered me a 20, a 15 and a Fitzgerald box. A big shop with points system yielded a Fitzgerald (by luck, but they had the allocation because of their size) a Handy and a Saz 18.
I just had a mid-size shop where I've spent a ton of money under-deliver on a promise of "a couple of bottles of Pappy" with a 12. Still a nice bottle, but not commensurate with what I've spent there.
It's just crazy out there this year.

Specs is pretty transparent. They award bottles on a points system. I'm sorry, but I'm not killing my liver or emptying my bank account so I can get a bottle of Pappy 15 years from now.

Yeah, Specs is pretty fair I guess, and I've come to terms with the fact that they get the largest allocation in Texas and my only chance of getting any of the highly allocated bottles apart from them will be pure luck. My understanding from talking to the lady who called me about my bottle of OFBB this year is that Specs as a whole has separate allocation lists for OFBB, Four Roses LE, BTAC, and PVWFR that you can request to be on. Priority is by number of Specs points. Once they find out from the distributor what their allocation will be of each release, they go down that release's list and start calling people asking them if they want a bottle and/or which one. Sometimes the BTAC and PVWFR are lumped together. They basically go down the list until all the bottles they are getting have been assigned, and they send those bottles to the stores where each person has requested to pick up. A few years ago they said the minimum to even be on the list was 1,000 points. I'd say the minimum to get a bottle of PVW would be 10,000 points if not more now. I wish they would send a few extra bottles to each location for the whiskey guys to distribute as they see fit based on people who come in regularly and actually have a relationship with them, but oh well...

Sunny's Discount Liquor on W Alabama is selling ER10 for 80 bucks

never been in there and now I never will