From the front page · Thread · The whole shelf · 2026-08-06

Bourbon is a small shelf: fair in the middle, hunted at the top

mergedmay_publish falsequality passsite_publish falseprices: Buffalo Trace Bourbon 700mL: no Stockcode resolved for this name;...

1/Strip the American shelf down to bourbon-labelled bottles and just eighteen remain. Even the fairest of them carries a few percent over its own CE 360 jury: Buffalo Trace at $58, Jim Beam Black at $53, Early Times Gold at $58.

2/Bourbon as a category runs a shade dearer than the mass-market Kentucky shelf, because the cohort is narrower. Wild Turkey Longbranch ($67) and Basil Hayden's ($80) fill out the honest end, all under a tenth over fair.

3/The words are pure bourbon: caramel and vanilla, oak and char, leather, brown sugar. Sweet and woody, and priced about where the profile sits.

4/The steep end is the usual allocated suspects and one oddity. The two Old Rip Van Winkle bottles at $900 top it, both more than a quarter over; Jim Beam Pineapple ($56), a flavoured outlier, comes third-steepest, with Woodford Double Oaked ($105) close behind.

5/So the bourbon shelf is small, fair through the middle, and steep only where the allocation hunters gather. Everyday bourbon, the $58 Buffalo Trace or the $53 Jim Beam Black? (Dan Murphy's, this Thursday.)

Sources

generate_cycle.py replay payload, artefact 2026-08-06-replay/whole-shelf/bourbon-whisky-style-ccd938, vintage 2026-08-06.r. Gap basis: percentage.
Coverage: 18 of 18 members observed (100%). Price band $52.95-899.99, median $78.48; CE 360 mean-avg about $131.39. Words: caramel, vanilla, sweet, leather, oak, char, brown, sugar.
Hot 5 (smallest premium, all observed): Buffalo Trace 700mL $58 (6.94% over); Early Times Gold $58 (8.34%); Jim Beam Black $53 (8.45%); Wild Turkey Longbranch $67 (8.88%); Basil Hayden's $80 (9.11%).
Cold 5 (largest premium): Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year $900 (28.34% over); Old Rip Van Winkle 12 Year $900 (27.36%); Jim Beam Pineapple $56 (23.13%); Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit $157 (22.49%); Woodford Reserve Double Oaked $105 (20.49%).

Omissions

Full coverage: 18 of 18 members priced live, no carried prices to name.
The Sources cut is the aggregate's stored top/bottom movers, not the full 18-bottle ranking.
'Hot'/'cold' are value-position labels only; every bottle sits above its own mean, the hot end least so.

Notes for reviewer

Replay draft on 2026-08-06.r; may_publish: false and never flips in replay.
Overlaps the Kentucky region and USA country shelves on the American bottles; framed here as the bourbon style cohort, which reads a few percent dearer.

Format note

Whole Shelf, Bourbon (whisky_style), vintage 2026-08-06.r. Gap basis percentage. Coverage 18 of 18 members priced live (100%). ce_gap_pct is each bottle's premium over its own CE 360 mean; 'hot' is closest to fair value. Sources holds the ranked cut.

Frontmatter as merged

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source file: drafts/2026-08-06-whole-shelf-bourbon-small-fair-hunted-top.md