Where to buy pappy van winkle bourbon

Saucey stocks loads of whiskey and the prices are very reasonable. They have most of the standard Pappy range on their site at some very reasonable prices relatively speaking! They connect you with local shops so you will almost certainly find something. Website: houseofmalt. House of Malt is a very recently formed store based in Cumbria, UK and they have a really great range of Scotch and many whiskies from all over the world.

They also have a few lovely Van Winkles for sale. The prices are not as high as some places, though obviously higher than retail! Drizly is a very cool website that allows you to order from many different local shops across the US.

This means that you can grab some relatively cheap deals for Pappy and can even get it at retail pricing if you are lucky! Website: whiskyshop. They have shops all over the UK and have Pappy 23 available on the website however it is collection only so you would need to pick it up from one of their stores. Website: dewinespot. This is a cool little shop based in Brooklyn, New York with a good range of whiskey and a few Pappys available.

Website: htfw. Hard To Find Whisky living up to their name as they have some Pappy 23 available. They are based in Birmingham, UK and say on the website that they deliver worldwide.

Website: theoldbarrelhouse. Oh… my… Lord. These guys have a LOT of very rare Pappy available including the infamous 16 year old releases from You may need to remortgage your house to afford them of course but it would be worth it possibly. They are based in Washington and have a huge range of spirits available. And best of all… you guessed some bottles of Van Winkle. Disclaimer: we may earn a small commission if you click the above links and go on to make a purchase.

This helps us to run the website and buy more bottles to review for you. Image attribution: Dale Cruse on Flickr. Please let me know. Thank you. Better whiskey writers than I have outlined the economics of it , but really any sober economist could tell you the result: Absurdly. The original stocks of Stitzel-Weller juice appear to have been used up in the early s. The Buffalo Trace version is still a wheated bourbon, with a higher concentration of wheat than rye, which ought to give it a more velvety mouthfeel and complex sweetness.

But fifteen or twenty years or twenty-three years is an extraordinarily long time for bourbon to sit in new American oak casks, soaking up delightful flavors. They tell us, in short, that it tastes like heaven. The most obvious way to get Pappy close to retail price is through a state-run lottery.

To avoid all sorts of black-market shenanigans more on that soon , a handful of states — most of them have state-run liquor stores — only sell Pappy to lucky winners. But Pennsylvania — home of some absurd blue laws, and where they just started selling beer at grocery stores a few years ago — controls its liquor with an iron fist. I walk out of the store with the flush of a successful riverboat gambler. Here is my shot! Turns out you have to be a resident of the state of PA to enter the lottery.

But no problem. There are plenty of other states where you can enter the lottery and not be a resident. Of course, that would be the bulk of my Pappy money gone.

My exhilaration for the lotto game slows. I might as well have found my bottle of Pappy lying on the ground like a dirty five-dollar bill. Without the chase, would I really even be excited to drink it? The next obvious place to look for a bottle of Pappy is, of course, to google that shit. And that is how quickly I entered the not-so-dark underworld of the black market for bourbon.

A quick thought on ethics here. But rather than going full The Untouchables, it appears the feds would rather just turn off the biggest online marketplaces for the stuff. People used to sell bottles on eBay; that got shut down years ago. I hear myths about private Facebook groups where the Pappy flows like cheap wine.

Back room deals, meetups to drink the stuff. The last tweet by PappyTracker , a twitter account made to spit out Pappy-finding tips, is for a state lottery in I email the bag guy. Near-retail price, for the year bottle. Grail stuff. The beer selection is good, the faces behind the counter are smiling and the bottles up high on the shelf are impressive, with prices that seem right. Big mistake. The counter guy looks me in the eye again. He tells me he used to work as a bartender, and he had a vendor hookup who got him bottles.

He smiles. Gotta love LA. Bolstered by bonhomie, my new writer friend starts telling me all kinds of stuff. Starting with the fact that the price for the year Pappy, bought in-store when they got it in early November, would be… He double-takes his computer screen, then laughs maniacally.

As in, sixteen hundred dollars? In a conspiratorial whisper, he tells me he thinks the 15 is better than the 20 or And those ones cost three grand. I pick his brain about how this all works. Buffalo Trace confirmed that wholesalers determine distribution.

These liquor stores, he tells me, are fronts for rich guys who want to clean their money. As a rule, I try not to entangle myself with shady businesses. Asking a purported money launderer for a deal on a bottle of whiskey feels like a one-way ticket to run errands for the mob.

Then again, people have committed serious crimes to get their hands on some Pappy. He also fired a silenced pistol in the parking lot to intimidate other employees and was very, very into selling illegal steroids. The ringleader pleaded not guilty and got 15 years — and then was released for probation 30 days into his sentence.

Does the judge drink bourbon, perhaps? So before getting illicit, I try the vendors. I call and email. I could canvas more random liquor stores. Instead I crack and call up the maybe-shady store. The Boss of the place picks up. My heart skips a beat. No Pappy, then?

You collect? Come in tomorrow. I show up the next night, curious, a little excited. The store is long and narrow, with lots of neon lights, a line of fridges filled with boozy canned mixed drinks on one side and stocked liquor shelves all down the other. The Boss has got some interesting goods behind the counter. I ask how he gets the cool bottles. A lot of work, he says. Move a lot of whiskey. I get the VP of Fireball in here, other bigwigs, all the time. I have not. He got one of the twelve bottles that made it to LA, he says.

He is suddenly suspicious. I have blown it. His eyes sharpen into suspicious blades. I realize The Boss is jacked. You mostly collect then? Am I an idiot? I play it cool and start asking him about other bottles. The Boss cools off.

Disappointing, but free is free. We go outside for a smoke.