Limited Run Bottlings

I haven't been to NYC for a while but Park Avenue Liquors was always excellent. I'm told they are just a bit pricy for the NYC area but they were still cheaper than home and had an excellent selection.

That's one place Ive been looking at, their prices are pretty steep though

Well I don't think you'll find bargains among the Balvenie / Glenfiddich Vintages! High prices are part of the concept for these kind of bottlings.

Haha, this is completely true. I believe I will take a gander at Park Avenue sometime warly next month and see what they have there. I am looking to add some rare Islay malts to my collection, any suggestions?

I just killed an Old Malt Cask Laphroig 20 yr old which was fabulous, I've also had the OMC 18 y/o I would buy either again in a minute and count myself lucky for the opportunity. The Park avenue site shows an OMC 14 y/o Laphroig which IMO would be worth a look. If your budget stretches to it they also show some Port Ellen bottleings, I would be comfortable with any of them except the Gordon McPhail (I've had bad luck with them).

They also show a Duncan Taylor ( my second favorite indie) Caol Ila 26 y/o.

The selection, at least the stuff they show on the web, is not what it once was when I was in New York on a regular basis (hmmm I wonder it that is my fault?) but the place was always worth a poke around and a chat, I've found some real gems there.

@Settembrinom Are you looking for investment opportunities / collectable bottles or simply pure drinking pleasure? For investment, forget about independent releases like Douglas Laing OMC or G&M (with a few exceptions). Distillery releases tend to be better known and more desirable (Balvenie and Glenfiddich are almost never released by indies anyway). Diageo's special releases are worth a look, as are GlenDronach single casks, Ardbeg single casks or releases from closed distilleries.

If it's for the sake of drinking, then independents are great but you might want to look at less expensive bottles which offer just as much drinking satisfaction ;-)

There's a new single cask, peated, cask strength BenRiach you might seek out. It's 15 years old, distilled in 1995, and finished in a Pedro Ximinez sherry cask. The best news: it should be around $95. I don't see it listed on Park Avenue's site but they have a few other BenRiachs so ....

@WhiskyNotes I'm looking for a few bottles for collection purposes, particularly some Islay scotches at about the same rarity as Glenfiddich's Vintage Reserves or Balvenie's Vintage Casks. Right now the cornerstone of my Islay malts is a 2008 Talisker 30 and for my non-Islays its a 1977 Glenfiddich Vintage Reserve. I'm looking to build upon my collection with bottles within the range of those two, with one or two bottles of higher scarcity. I am currently looking at a 1978 Balvenie Vintage Cask as my next investment.

Difficult for that Talisker to be your Islay cornerstone, Talisker not being from Islay and all.

True, it is an Islands malt officially.

And geographically.

What do you guys think about Glenfiddich's Snow Phoenix as a limited run bottle?

It's a nice bottle with good whisky inside. On the other hand the yield was too high, the price too low, and availability too good to make it a valuable collector's item. Too many people have bought one simply to store it somewhere in a box, hoping to make money from it in the future.

Snow Phoenix was a great bit of PR for Glenfiddich, it's a nice whisky too.

Very, very true. I bought a bottle last week whilst on vacation and didn't know if I should bother saving it or drink it eventually. I live in Ontario though so there's no way that I would legally be able to sell it if it ever did go up in value. It does look great on my bookshelf though!

I always find it intriguing what is meant by "Limited Run", also - for instance, the new replica Shackleton's Mackinley blend which was released this week (singlemaltsdirect.com/shackleton-mackinlay-…) is a limited run of 50,000 bottles.

Bruichladdich's "Blacker Still" was about 2,800 bottles, and any single cask bottling is likely to be somewhere around or below 300.

AFAICT there was no run size specified for Snow Phoenix or for the English Whisky Company's Commemorative Royal Wedding edition.

So, y'know - what's "limited" mean anyway?

@jasonbstanding "what's "limited" mean anyway?"...probably a tad better defined when production allotments are known / shared unlike what is marketed as "small batch"...who knows what amount that means!?

"Limited run" simply means they won't try to replicate it with new batches once it runs out. 100 can be limited, 10.000 as well. People tend to understand "rare" which is another thing. The largest amount of "limited" is probably defined by the size of your vatting tank.