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Comment by kevinconaway | Hacker News Reader

Much like Pappy Van Winkle, its popular now because its popular. People want what they can't have.

Good whiskey takes a while to mature (the lowest PVW ages for 15 years) so if there is a spike in demand, producers cannot react quickly.

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Unlike Pappy van Winkle, Yamazaki is really quite good. 2 of the three Pappy bottles I've had tasted like grass clippings, and the 3rd was pretty unremarkable.

Also, careful with the aging comparisons. Single malt whiskey routinely ages for over a decade and the really expensive stuff for significantly longer than that. But Pappy is a bourbon, and it is unusual for bourbons to age for 15 years, not because it's expensive but because it's often counterproductive. I think? several of the Buffalo Trace Antiques are even no-age-statement.

I stopped drinking Van Winkle a while ago when the price to quality ratio when sideways. That said, claiming it isn't good is a stretch. Its very good whiskey. Just not much better than a load of other very good whiskey. That said, when I was drinking it, I preferred the 12 year to all the other expressions.

The sweet spot for bourbon seems to be in that 8-12 year market. Unfortunately that stuff is basically the hardest to sell these days. It used to be that a 6 year bourbon was fairly easy to find (VOB for instance used to do that at bottom shelf prices). But now thats treated like an antique. While if you have 12 year old barrels sitting around it makes sense to hold them until they are into ridiculous ages for the collector market.

We had at the old office a 15 and a 20, and they both tasted like grass clippings. Not hay, not tobacco, just fresh, slightly sour cut grass. I think that's how it's supposed to taste.

I've had a 23 in a glass and liked it fine, but I've had vanity whiskey that completely blew my head off --- Thomas Handy, Stagg, Booker's Rye --- and the Pappy wasn't one of them.

I mean, I've had vanity Laphroag that only tasted of wood fire. Doesn't make it not good. I certainly wouldn't pay for it but I'm not saying its bad whiskey.

I'm like 90% sure they make Laphroaig by distilling ground up burnt swamp frogs. I'm comfortable saying it's bad.

(I'm off to Michigan this weekend and my plan is to spend a fixed % of the price of the beach house we rented on whiskey, so this stuff is very top-of-mind for me right now. Had this thread not occurred, I'm like 90% sure I'd have gotten talked into buying Kavelan, so it's already a major win.)

Try some of the micro distillers up and down the state of Michigan. Then judge 'bad' vs 'good' whiskey.

At the end of the day, not liking something and not believing it is appropriate value are different than 'this stuff is broken'. Which seems to be the state of lots of micro distilleries.

[edit] also, i didnt want to imply I didn't like the Kavalan only that everyones whiskey guy is selling that stuff in Chicago right now. I havent actually tried it, mostly cause i blew my budget on mezcal a while back.

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