How a Veteran Distiller Picks a $30 Costco Bottle That Drinks Like $200

📗 Save $2,000 A Year On Whiskey With My Distiller Methods: https://wadecooperdistiller.com The number on the front of a bourbon bottle is honest. It is also a receipt for storage, and you have been paying for that number for years without ever being told what it measures. This video is about two bottles from the same company. Elijah Craig Small Batch has no age on it anywhere and runs 29 dollars and 99 cents at my store. Elijah Craig 18 Year averages 222. Same recipe, same buildings, and one of them has a number on the front. I will show you what a barrel actually runs on, which is summers and not years, and the five things that age number does not count, from the one that costs you the least to the one that costs you the most. Then the arithmetic behind that 222 dollar bottle, which is real arithmetic and not a scam. A barrel holds 53 gallons when it is filled, and a good share of it goes out through the wood before anybody pours a glass. You are not paying seven times over for what is in that bottle. You are paying seven times over for what left it. Whether the cheap one drinks like the expensive one is my judgment and not a fact. But in blind pours in my own kitchen, with the labels covered by my own hand, I have picked the cheap bottle often enough that I stopped being surprised. Not always. Often. At the end I will tell you the one thing on a bourbon bottle that cannot be faked. It is free to look at, and it is your homework for this week. I spent 34 years in this industry filling barrels and looking after them, the better part of two decades of it in warehouses. Nobody paid me to say any of this, and there is nothing for sale here. CHAPTERS: 00:00 – 222 dollars against 30, and the number on the front 00:49 – The age number is a receipt for storage 02:00 – Who I am not blaming, and why the calendar got the front of the bottle 03:06 – What the next twenty minutes will cover 03:48 – 34 years and nine tiers of rick 04:34 – The two names, right away 05:20 – What I can defend and what I cannot 06:00 – A barrel ages in summers, not years 06:11 – Wood is a pump, and the top tier works double shifts 07:24 – Hoyt, the chalk and the ninth tier 08:22 – Same whiskey, same building, twice the work 08:49 – What this list will not do for you 09:14 – Number one: the age of the youngest whiskey 10:02 – Number two: it counts calendar years, not floors 10:49 – Number three: the water before the wood 12:08 – Number four: small batch has no legal definition 13:03 – Number five: the wood takes, and it costs the most 13:50 – The arithmetic of a 53 gallon barrel 14:28 – Two thirds gone, and what you are really paying for 14:46 – The 192 dollar difference is arithmetic, not greed 15:13 – The same arithmetic on the cheap bottle 15:57 – The expensive bottle is not a fraud 16:48 – Hot floors make mistakes, and whether you will like it 17:42 – More than 16 million barrels in Kentucky 18:49 – The shortage is over, except at the cheap end 20:17 – No sponsor, nothing for sale 20:30 – Your homework: hold two bottles up to the light 21:40 – Tell me your town and your price 22:23 – Next time: one barrel, one bottle #distiller #bourbon #whiskey #bourbontips #costco #elijahcraig #smallbatch #distillertips #savemoney #bourbonbuying