If you were living under a rock yesterday in the booze retail world, let me quickly recap what happened:

• Our system once again showed live products on our website that were supposed to be hidden from consumers.

• On top of that, the app that limits consumers to one bottle per order shit the bed, allowing customers to order as many bottles as they wanted.

• Our entire single barrel exclusive of Weller Cask Strength sold out in ten minutes after people added anywhere between 18-36 bottles to their orders (not to mention the EH Taylor single barrel).

• I spent the next ten hours digging out of that mess, and I’ll spend another ten today doing the same thing.

To be clear, NO ONE GOT MORE THAN ONE BOTTLE OF WELLER off the web yesterday. We reverted all large orders back down to one bottle. We’ll start processing those orders today. Ditto for the EH Taylor, which we scaled back to a two bottle limit.

95% of the people who had their orders adjusted were super cool and completely understood. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that. As for the guy who yelled for ten minutes about how he had already sold two of the bottles online, I would say: don’t count your Wellers until they’ve hatched. Or maybe a Weller in the hand is worth more than two bottles online? Pick your aphorism.

I want to quickly tell you a story about one of the most important experiences of my life; one that has dramatically changed the way I think and behave today.

When I moved to Los Angeles in January of 2019, I purchased a townhome in Sherman Oaks as part of an HOA. After befriending some of my neighbors, I was invited to join the board of the HOA to help solve problems in the community and make changes that could benefit us all.

I was on the board from May of 2019 to September of 2020, when I decided to sell my unit and move on. During that time we accomplished nothing meaningful, solved almost none of our problems, and—because I was open, friendly, and accessible—I became a sounding board for everything that was wrong with the community. I had neighbors calling me nonstop asking me to fix things, as if it were my responsibility alone and I could act with executive authority (or divine right!), complaining about everything from ambulance sirens at the nearby hospital to the type of flowers we planted in the front walkway.

When I asked them to become involved and share some of the burden as HOA members, they were nowhere to be found. Everyone wanted to complain, no one wanted to actually do anything to help.

When I decided to sell my unit and move, one of my neighbors lamented to me: “I thought you might really change things around here, but I guess not.”

Sigh.

What I discovered about being an HOA board member is that, for many people, “change” means doing what they want done at that particular moment in time, without any consideration for the community at large. If you don’t help them, you’re an asshole. If you do help them, you’re a hero. Until they need help again, at which point you’ll be an asshole if you don’t help them.

At this particular moment in time, everyone wants access to the rarest possible whiskies at the best possible prices. For many consumers, the idea of “change” involves them getting access to those whiskies at the prices they want.

I will continue to do everything I can to spread these bottles around fairly, but there’s no changing the fact that there will always be 10,000 guys who want access to 100 available bottles.

As my friend Nasser said to me last night: “Rare whiskey doesn’t scale.”

-David Driscoll