Resolutions for 2018.

@Nelom, damn you and your accountability!

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I pledged to purchase ZERO bottles in 2018. My violation of that pledge has been infinite (in strictly literal mathematical terms) as I have bought six. They're all for my club, but that's a thin excuse since I have PLENTY of bottles already in my possession that I could convert into club bottles and keep all my club buddies perfectly happy. My justification has been that the club has grown and we sometimes open two bottles a month now instead of one.

Well, I also sold an extra bottle from my stash to the club for that same reason, so I guess I'm at "net five."

For the record, here's what I succumbed to:

Bruichladdich Islay Barley (one of them)

Bruichladdich Islay Barley (a different one)

West Cork Bog Oak

West Cork Peat-Charred Cask

Stronachie 12

Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask

@Nelom, At this point on the calendar 18% below target for dollar spend ytd. I'm cherry picking some nice bottles. There is no room in my budget for shelf fillers, I have a lifetime supply of those already. You would be surprised what fifty bucks a week plus a thousand dollar top-up can get you....as long as you don't spend the $50 every week.

2018 Purchases:

6 each Corby's Lot No 40 12 YO Rye Cask Strength

1 each Bushmills 21 YO

1 each Old Pulteney 17 YO

1 each Old Pulteney 21 YO

@paddockjudge

Does that mean I get to keep the Red Letters?

@Nelom I was wise enough to not pledge to anything. That way, I am happy with my purchases of the year.

@Robert99 And I know that you will be happy with at least one purchase this year (or at least from December)

@Nozinan More than one and I hope the best catches will be part of a tasting with you my friend. Like a Longrow 18.

So How did I do?

The good news:

I will likely end the year with 3 fewer open bottles than I started.

Moderately good news:

I actually purchased fewer bottles than last year.

Most of my whisky-related spending including private preserve and most glassware was less than the after tax portion of the honouraria I got for my work for my professional association so didn't come out of my "salary" (this was a wife-friendly calculation).

The Bad News:

Unless some of the bottles in transit break, I will end the year with 14 more bottles than I started. Given that I made my target last year, this is a disappointment.

The only way to avoid disappointment is to either lower expectations (not a good idea as I am running out of room (@paddockjudge, I need you to help me re-arrange again), or learn why.

I've divided it into factors I cannot control and those I can.

Out of my control - I received 5 bottles as gifts this year. All are ones I wish to keep. However, that would not have been the difference.

Within my control - purchases. I bought more bottles than I was able to open or gift. I was doing fine until October. I purchased 12 bottles in the last 3 months of the year.

What factors contributed to this? The NBC collection comes out in the fall. Hard to say no to excellent CS rye. And at the same time there were some awesome sales which, along with the rumour that Portonova and IS were moving to travel retail, prompted me to pull the trigger. Those sales also conspired to lure me to buy a total of 5 bottles of Amrut, and a Corryvreckin that was less than half the price of the KGBO.

The other 3 purchases were reasonable decisions, based on reading Connosr posts and discussions with Connosrs.

So what can I do to get on track for 2019?

• Drink more - this is a reasonable plan as my intake is not high - my limitation is time

• Stop reading Connosr - knowledge of good expressions out there drives buying

• Become much more selective in my purchases - acknowledging I may run out of some expressions in my lifetime but also recognizing the pattern that there will always be good new bottles out there if I need them, and, even if not, that I can be very happy with what I have.

I am not too confident I can do the first two - my drinking opportunities remain limited and I've made too many friends on Connosr to want to stop now. So I guess I will have to focus on number 3. Wish me luck!

@Nozinan - 'Stop reading Connosr - knowledge of good expressions out there drives buying'

Ha . . . aint that the truth!

I'm not making any 'hardcore' resolutions for 2019 but have a relatively small number of bottles on my wishlist that I hope to procure and one or two others that, should they come available, I'll buy if the funds are there. OK, I'll nail this down more - it will be ten or less

Coming back to this thread I was planning to post that I had not managed to keep my resolution. But looking over my original post, I realized that I had apparently only resolved to "buy less" not "buy nothing" and so in the end I guess I sort of did manage to keep it. Whichever version of my resolution I go by, I did at the very least come very close, as I only bought two bottles this year:

• The Wendel Clark Alumni Series Whisky, an 11-year-old 100% rye Canadia whisky bottled at 41.6% that's exclusive to the LCBO.
• Hvenus Rye Whisky, a "3-to-6-year-old" (the distillery's claim, which as you all know means it's 3 years old by traditional whisky reckoning) Swedish rye whisky bottled at 45.6%. The stated grain proportions are 78.6% rye, 11.9% wheat, 4.8% corn, and 4.7% barley. It's non-filtered and with no colour or other additives.