The French Future

For those of you who appreciate quality and value over pop culture trends and current fashion, I have a feeling we're going to convert you over to French spirits before too long. It's pretty crazy that I can buy a product that's more expensive to produce than Bourbon, ship it all the way through the Panama Canal into Oakland, and get it onto the shelf at K&L for the same price or less than a standard NDP American whiskey these days that's made in country. But that's where the market's at! In the meantime, we're getting better prices than ever on incredible Armagnacs, Cognacs, and Calvados apple brandies, testing the loyalties of even the most die-hard whiskey fans. I had a customer tell me this past Saturday that he tried a bottle of the 2001 Grangerie and thought it was better than any current Bourbon on the available market, especially for the price. I couldn't argue with him.

Stay tuned for what should be a pretty happening pre-Memorial Day blitz. We've got our first shipment of Pacory pear Calvados coming later this week, a new producer that we discovered this past December when Charles Neal and I were in France. He's got a nice little five year old pear-distilled beauty that I had bottled at 55% cask strength. We've also got a new delivery of Bouju Cognac, one of our additive-free brandies that showcases the purity and delicacy of unadulterated Cognac. Both will be on the shelf at $39.99—a price you can feel good about when you blow through half the bottle within the first two hours at your family BBQ this weekend.

-David Driscoll