Scotch at Dan Murphy's, priced every Thursday. Lagavulin 16 and the ten bottles that define it.
Dan Murphy's · week of 2026-11-05
vintage 2026-11-05.1
operator tier
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From the Glenfiddich desk · Thread · Compare the pair · 2026-08-27

Glenfiddich 15 or 18: what the three extra years cost

mergedmay_publish falsequality passsite_publish trueprices: 2 price claim(s) verified live

1/Same distillery, three years apart: Glenfiddich's 15 against its 18. Both are sitting at the bottom of their own recent tickets this Thursday. $125 for the 15, $170 for the 18, plain shelf at Dan Murphy's, no member deal on either.

2/Buy the two together and it's $294.80 today. What's interesting isn't the total — it's that both legs hit their own floor in the same week. That doesn't line up often, and it's a short window, so read it as timing rather than a verdict.

3/The jump to the 18 is $45. That's about the usual gap between these two, so the older bottle isn't unusually dear right now, nor a steal. You're paying roughly its normal age premium, just from a lower base.

4/So it's the plain question with the markup stripped out: are Glenfiddich's extra three years worth $45 to you today, or does the 15 already do the job? Both Dan Murphy's this week. Tell me where you'd stop.

Sources

  • generate_cycle.py replay payload, artefact 2026-08-27-replay/compare-the-pair/glenfiddich-15-year-old-single-malt-scotch-whisky-700ml-glen-e07979, grounded on vintage 2026-08-27.r, own-history window as-of 2026-08-27.
  • Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL: shelf ticket $125 (claim value 125.0; grounding.ref.price 125.0; harvest price_list and price_member both $124.90, on_offer no, 2026-08-27, Stockcode 903946), not a member offer; at its own-history floor (percentile 0.0, 5 observations).
  • Glenfiddich 18 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL: shelf ticket $170 (claim value 170.0; grounding.cand.price 170.0; harvest price_list and price_member both $169.90, on_offer no, 2026-08-27, Stockcode 901411), not a member offer; at its own-history floor (percentile 0.0, 5 observations).
  • Pair sum $294.80 (grounding.pair_level.sum.value 294.8). Step-up 18 over 15 = $45 (170 − 125; grounding.pair_level.difference.value −45.0), against a window-average gap near $41 (difference reference_mean −41.26), so the current gap is not unusually wide (difference test not significant, p ≈ 0.48).
  • Closeness: VSM profile cosine 0.978, VSM rank 5; CE utility score 0.0987, CE rank 26 (candidate.pair, rank_diff -21). same_country true, both Scotland; ages 15 and 18.
  • Character: Glenfiddich 15 factor profile Sherry & Dried Fruit 0.19 + Orchard & Cereal 0.04; Glenfiddich 18 Sherry & Dried Fruit 0.15 + Orchard & Cereal 0.03 (2026-08-27.r dossiers).

Omissions

  • Light form only: no CE 360 band bounds, no cross-read CEARP, no Welch t-test. The post uses the own-history floor read and the plain price gap, not the test statistics.
  • Each leg carries 5 in-window observations this early in the 13-week window; 'both at their floor' rests on a short history and is kept to a timing observation.
  • Same distillery, so this is not a 'never shelve together' pairing; it is a step-up comparison within one range, which is why the VSM/CE rank split is disclosed rather than sold as similarity.

Notes for reviewer

  • Replay draft on rehearsal vintage 2026-08-27.r; may_publish: false and never flips in replay.
  • Confirm the $45 step-up read (170 − 125) and that the piece does not imply a movement claim: both prices are unchanged member/list, sitting at their own-window floor.

Format note

Compare the pair, automated light form. Two shelf tickets and each bottle's own-history position only; no CE 360 bands, no cross-read CEARP, no Welch t-test quoted (the light form excludes them). Both prices shelf basis, neither on a member offer this week. Both 700mL, same distillery. This is an age-ladder timing note, not a similarity claim: the VSM profile model ranks the two 5th-closest (same house), the value model 26th (rank_diff -21), so it reads them as one distillery's step-up, both at their own floor, not as interchangeable.

Frontmatter as merged
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