Yesterday was a magical day in my world. I woke up to three sweet cats, drank my coffee, read the morning paper, watched the sun come up over the mountains, and set up my grocery deliveries for later that day.
Do you know what I was able to get delivered to my house for less than $50? A 1.75 liter bottle of 9 year old 100 proof Knob Creek. That’s what the wholesale cost used to be, and now that includes delivery and tip.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll never pine for the past or long for the “glory days” of whiskey so long as I can continue to find deals like this on the market. For every whiskey that becomes cultish, collectable, and out of reach, another fifty pop up. For every brand that goes up in price, another twenty will become more competitive.
And yet, week in and week out, for the last four years I’ve heard so much lamenting from consumers about the same handful of whiskies, as if that’s all that’s worth drinking. As if they’re all that can make us happy. It’s sort of like the stock market. You think you can only make money with FAANG stocks? There’s a lot more out there than just five companies. You need to diversify so that you have other options when things go south.
Because I was sitting on a delicious 1.75L of Knob at roughly 10:48 AM, I started early yesterday. By 3 PM, I was on a roll, texting some of my drinking buddies to tell them about the deal. I ended up in a dialogue about how Knob and Booker’s are made from the same mash bill, and that the difference comes down to barrel selection and where the casks are located in the rickhouse. “The only reason anyone ever cared about Weller 12 is because they found out it was the same recipe as Van Winkle 12,” I texted one friend; “The only difference is the barrel selection. So you’d think more Booker’s fans would be buying huge swaths of Knob at this price.”
I know guys who love Booker’s, but don’t like Knob Creek. They’re willing to pay secondary prices to secure a bottle of Booker’s, but they won’t even bat an eye at Knob Creek’s value. Personally, I think that’s crazy, but I do understand the impact of sentimental value. As an example, I hate the Eagles, but I love Don Henley’s solo work. I think “Boys of Summer” is a far superior song to “Hotel California,” yet there were guys out there last year willing to drop $5000 a ticket just to hear the Eagles perform the latter in Las Vegas. No one was dropping $5000 to hear “Boys of Summer.”
Because I know I can always find value in the whiskey and wine market, I will never pay secondary market prices for a bottle of alcohol. But that’s not to say I won’t pay secondary prices if there’s something I really want that I can’t get. Take the new Lego flower bouquet as an example. It’s so damn cool that it went viral on release and sold out immediately, everywhere. The only way to get it now is to pay 60-100% more on Ebay, so that’s what I did. I can’t have real flowers in the house because my cats will eat them and get sick, so I this was a unique and stylish alternative. There is no other version of Lego flowers. This is it. You either get this version, or none at all.
But when it comes to alcohol, there are so many versions of new products that are changing all of the time!! To paraphrase a friend’s email from yesterday: as soon as you find something you like, it becomes so popular that it sells out, or they have to change the formula to keep up with demand and it’s no longer what it used to be. For example, the Ardbeg Uigeadail you’re drinking today isn’t the same as what you were drinking ten years ago. Those changes can be disappointing, but—come on, guys—life is full of shit like this. We use our coping skills and we move on. Plus, things usually swing back the other way as time goes by.
As an example, due to the demand for Bourbon in 2016, Knob Creek had to take the 9 year age statement off its bottle and release a younger product. For the next four years, Knob was the same price, but it wasn’t the same whiskey. But last year supply caught up to demand, the 9 year statement came back, and now—I wholeheartedly believe—it’s better than ever. And it’s so widely available with pricing so competitive that you can get a 1.75L delivered for $50 to your home. So that’s what I did yesterday, and it made me very happy.
Another example: from 2018 to 2020, I moved five times, bought one house, sold two, and I’m now on my sixth job. I’ve had to adjust as life dealt me some disappointments, some curve balls, and a series of highs and lows. But now in 2021 I’ve settled down, found a great place to live, and it seems like I have a pretty stable position here at Mission. It’s easy to get caught up in what seems like a better yesterday, but the optimist in me is addicted to forging ahead towards a better tomorrow. If you keep searching, you’ll find what you’re looking for. Unless you’re stuck looking backward.
Listening to “Boys of Summer” again as I type this, there’s a lot of wisdom in Don’s lyrics:
Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.
A little voice inside my head said 'Don’t look back, you can never look back.’
I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?
Those days are gone forever, I should just let them go.
I drank Elmer T. Lee pretty regularly ten years ago because it was one of the best values on the market at that time. I didn’t really think much more about it than that. Now I drink Knob Creek 9 year because it’s currently one of the best values on the market. Life is still pretty good.
-David Driscoll