1 Great Bottle or 3 good bottles?

Haha, this sounds familiar. My opinion on it is that it depends where you are in your whisky journey. Those who are newer will balk at the idea of paying multiple hundreds of dollars for less than a litre of liquid. I know I did at one point. After a while, chances are you'll have tasted the standard favorites often enough and you'll and want something that gives you a bit of a different experience; Or, maybe you'll find yourself at a tasting, and you'll end up trying something that just blows your mind and makes you think - well, I certainly would forego the opportunity cost of owning the next 3 bottles I was going to buy to obtain this gem....

"Rich man's/woman's problems!" Sure, if you've got dozens, scores, hundreds of bottles, like many of us do, then you can afford to indulge one bottle rather than three.

For this reason, I can and would entertain this sort of notion of the one expensive rather than the three less expensive bottles now, with my 300 bottles in the house. I would have laughed at the idea ten years ago.

@Victor, ...and an Amen from the choir brother!

As I have mentioned before, between a trip to Scotland, a few whisky shows, and my own expanding collection I’ve tried just about every “entry level” expression I can be expected to given the market I live in. I don’t have the volume of bottles some here do, as I’m hovering somewhere in the 40 range, but I’ve recently decided I would rather get 1 expensive bottle than 2-3 “cheap” bottles. I too thought it was madness to spend more than $100 on a bottle 5 years ago. Those days are far in my rear view. Part of the reason is that there really are no cheap bottles left in my neck of the woods - everything costs. Benromach 10 (which has gone up by $20 since it was first released 2 years ago), kilkerran 12 (up $25 in 2 years), and HP 12 are great as everyday expression but they still aren’t cheap per se. Might as well splash out or something that might be a little more memorable, like a more aged expression or a IB, rather than buy duplicates if those are already in my cabinet.

Maybe our Dear Leader in Toronto will help folks everywhere by enacting “a-dollar-a-dram” legislation. You know, For the People

I mean, why should the downtown elites get all the perks, folks?

@nooch as you have described it, expanding the range of your quality experiences now more or less basically requires expanding your budget per bottle. That is very understandable.

When I spend the big bucks on a bottle of whisky, which I currently define as more than $ 125 USD I expect to get a lot of quality for what I paid. Usually this means I want to taste the product first. I don't want any disappointing $ 250 bottles. (CAN $ 300)

I can’t really take one side here. Maybe like @Victor I need to taste a pricy bottle (anything over $80 CAD is pricy for me) before deciding if it’s worth it. I enjoy plenty of bottles under that price point (WT Rare Breed, WT 101, Lot 40, Laphroaig 10, Tomatin 12, HP 12, etc.)

We also entertain frequently, and while I love enjoying whisky with friends who appreciate it, or even introducing people to the pleasures of whisky, many of our friends will say “Give me a swig of your finest whisky, Joe”, and then basically “shoot” it as though they were a 21 year old during Spring Break. To each their own, but I’m not fond of watching my Ardbeg Uigeadail or my Lot 40 Cask Strength disappear that way. Snobbery? Maybe, but I don’t care. The standard Lot 40 serves well here, as the bottle looks really nice, and even at 43%, it has enough bite to impress the uninitiated. And at $35-$40 per bottle, it doesn’t bother me as much to see it significantly reduced in one night of (over)indulgence.

@OdysseusUnbound - I guess for me it's a mixed bag. I'll probably be buying more higher priced whisky this year but that's due to having over 40 unopened bottles - most of which are in the 10 - 12 year age range (malts). I'll still be buying a good few 'standard priced' bottles along the way though.

And that Lot 40 is easy to over do it with - Sat night being one such incident!