Scotland - Day 2: Some Thought

First off, let me say that Edinburgh is a fantastic city.  We'd never spent any time here, usually landing at the airport, hitting the meeting with Chieftain's, and then bolting for the country.  Last night, however, we had some extra time to walk around, visit a few whisky shops, and take in the beautiful architecture and the stark contrasts between the dark grey stone and the ultra-green hills.  We found a lively restaurant for dinner, almost too good to be true called The Outsider, which served big glasses of Pappy 20 for eight pounds, as well as delicious food, and then walked back through the rain to our hotel downtown.  I actually slept through the night for the first time ever, so now I'm up at six ready to go for a quick run, snap a few photos, pack up, and drive north.

One thing that David and I talked about last night at dinner was the price of single cask whisky.  One of the most frequent email subjects I receive from customers deals with the cost of all the barrels we've been finding - namely, that they wish we could find some less expensive options.  The problem with single cask whisky is that it's limited, and it's at cask strength - two qualifiers that raise the price of single malt.  It's simply easier to make the whisky less expensive by making a larger batch of it and lowering the per-bottle cost.  We're definitely open to the idea of doing a batch whisky while we're here.  If Glendronach or Bruichladdich want to put together a blend for us, I'd be over the moon.  That's a lot of work, however, so I would never expect it.  Single casks are easier to deal with.

The point is that $70 is going to always be the low end price for the single cask whiskies we're finding here.  $100 per bottle will likely be the average.  We can't always find amazing deals like the Faultline Cragganmore for $75, but we're trying.  I hate alienating customers who don't want to pay $100+ for these exciting new finds, but it's just the reality of the pricing.  The new Laphroaig cask we just bought is quite a good value for $130, but it doesn't help the person looking to spend $50.  Here's to hoping we can pull something off, however!

More from the road later.

-David Driscoll