1/Two of Islay's benchmark malts are both at their own floor this week at Dan Murphy's. Laphroaig 10 is $97. Ardbeg An Oa is $75. Neither has been cheaper across the eight weeks I've been tracking them.
2/Buy the pair and you're at $172. Those two bottles together have averaged about $247 over that window, so the basket is running roughly $75 under its own norm. That's well outside the usual week-to-week wobble.
3/The engine rates them close on character too — ninth-nearest to each other by utility. Both live at the Peat & Maritime end: Laphroaig the medicinal, iodine hit; the An Oa softer and a shade sweeter off the char.
4/Same island, same style, both at the bottom of their range on the same morning. If you were ever going to stock the peat shelf, it's this week. Which is your pour — the TCP punch of the 10, or the rounder An Oa?
2026-09-17-replay/compare-the-pair/laphroaig-10-year-old-single-malt-scotch-whisky-700ml-ardbeg-976830; window as-of 2026-09-17.Compare the pair, automated light form. Two live shelf tickets (neither on a member offer), each item's own-history percentile, and the pair's VSM and CE scores. No CE 360° bands, no cross-read CEARP, no Welch t-test on the means. The one test used is the pair-level bundle test: today's combined price against the pair's own seven prior snapshots (one-sample t, p 0.0002).
{
"date": "2026-09-17T00:00:00.000Z",
"title": "Laphroaig and Ardbeg both bottom out the same week",
"angle": "compare-the-pair",
"position": "n/a",
"status": "draft",
"derives_from": "none — standalone; the automated replay cycle grounds this on the week's harvest and the vintage's dyadic pool, no spoke article backs it",
"grounded_on": "2026-09-17.r (engine ranks); window as-of 2026-09-17 (percentiles and the pair-level test)",
"may_publish": false,
"replay": true,
"review_priority": "flagged",
"artefact_id": "2026-09-17-replay/compare-the-pair/laphroaig-10-year-old-single-malt-scotch-whisky-700ml-ardbeg-976830",
"format_note": "Compare the pair, automated light form. Two live shelf tickets (neither on a member offer), each item's own-history percentile, and the pair's VSM and CE scores. No CE 360° bands, no cross-read CEARP, no Welch t-test on the means. The one test used is the pair-level bundle test: today's combined price against the pair's own seven prior snapshots (one-sample t, p 0.0002).",
"claims": [
{
"item": "Laphroaig 10 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL",
"kind": "price",
"value": 97
},
{
"item": "Ardbeg An Oa Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL",
"kind": "price",
"value": 75
}
],
"subjects": [
"Laphroaig 10 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL",
"Ardbeg An Oa Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL"
],
"verified_at": "2026-09-27T07:31:42.000Z",
"verified_by": "etl/price_verify.py (harvest sidecar danmurphys_whisky_products_2026-09-17.normalised.csv, as of 2026-09-17)",
"verified_prices": {
"5512": 96.95,
"646895": 74.5
},
"verification_note": "2 price claim(s) verified live",
"quality_gate": "pass",
"gated_at": "2026-09-27T07:31:42.000Z",
"site_publish": true
}