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

From the front page · Thread · The whole shelf · 2026-10-01

The widest bourbon gap belongs to a $50 bottle, not a $1000 one

1/The widest gap over its own jury on the bourbon shelf isn't the $1000 Pappy. It's a $50 bottle — High West American Prairie, nearly 47% over — while Buffalo Trace, Ezra Brooks and Basil Hayden sit near fair. All 38 priced live at Dan Murphy's today; 11 moved since last look.

2/How I read it: each price against the fair value its own jury gives it, in percent. Nothing here dips under its mean, so the near end is "least over", not a discount. A cheap bottle can still sit furthest from fair; dear and over-its-jury are two different things.

3/The least-over end, all live. Basil Hayden's at $80, barely half a percent past its jury. Ezra Brooks at $70, +0.78%. Buffalo Trace at $56, +1.33%. These three are close enough to fair that the jury and the shelf basically agree.

4/The words behind the pour, pooled off the shelf's own reviews, category-wide: vanilla and caramel, honey and toffee, a dried-leather edge, a seam of rye. That's the house style of bourbon as the shelf speaks it. Not a note on any single bottle — the character of the category.

5/The dear end. High West American Prairie, just $50, lands nearly 47% over its own low jury number — the widest gap here, and a real live price, not a stale one. Cheap on the shelf, dear against its own mean. Behind it the two Old Rip Van Winkles, $1000 and $900, both near 29%.

6/So the tidy read: on this shelf, cheap and fair don't always travel together. The closest-to-jury pours are Buffalo Trace, Ezra Brooks and Basil Hayden; the $50 High West carries the biggest gap. Pouring tonight — the $56 Buffalo Trace or the $70 Ezra Brooks?

Sources

  • Coverage: 38 of 38 members priced live in the 2026-10-01 harvest (100%) — grounding.coverage (n_observed/n_members).
  • Price band $54.90–$899.99, median $84.995; scope-average CE 360° mean ≈ $114.13 — grounding.price_band, grounding.ce_360_mean_avg.
  • Shelf character words (category-level, parent-relative, pooled over 26 reviews): vanilla, caramel, honey, toffee, leather, rye. No per-bottle tasting notes are asserted; the words describe the shelf, not any one bottle.
  • Cool-down (decision 15): Bourbon (whisky_style): led 2026-09-10-whole-shelf-bourbon.md 21 day(s) earlier — CHANGED, may lead again; the piece must say what changed: 11 of 38 bottles changed price or 360° zone (29%; the bar is 10%) (2026-09-10.r to 2026-10-01.1)
End Item Price Gap % Priced
Hot 1 Basil Hayden's Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 700mL $80 +0.54% observed 2026-10-01
Hot 2 Ezra Brooks Kentucky Straight Bourbon 700mL $70 +0.78% observed 2026-10-01
Hot 3 Buffalo Trace Bourbon 700mL $56 +1.33% observed 2026-10-01
(hot) Wild Turkey Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 81 proof 1Litre $72 +2.09% observed 2026-10-01
(hot) Old Virginia 12 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 700mL $81 +2.28% observed 2026-10-01
Cold 1 High West Distillery American Prairie Bourbon Whiskey 700mL $50 +46.68% observed 2026-10-01
Cold 2 Old Rip Van Winkle 12 Year Old Special Reserve 750mL $1000 +29.05% observed 2026-10-01
Cold 3 Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year Old 107 Proof Bourbon Whiskey 700mL $900 +29.04% observed 2026-10-01
(cold) Blanton's Straight From The Barrel Bourbon 700mL $304 +26.86% observed 2026-10-01
(cold) Jim Beam Pineapple 700mL $56 +26.68% observed 2026-10-01

Omissions

None recorded.

Notes for reviewer

  • This is the Bourbon STYLE shelf, which overlaps the Kentucky region shelf on some names (Buffalo Trace, the Van Winkles). Written on its own terms; prose kept distinct from any Kentucky sibling piece.
  • The hook rests on a true inversion: the widest premium over its own jury is the cheapest headlined bottle ($50 High West), while the $1000/$900 Van Winkles sit lower in percent. Framed as the ordinary condition of a bottle being over its own low jury number, not as an accusation.
  • Cool-down led the bourbon scope 21 days back; the change count (11 of 38, 29%, bar is 10%) is stated in post 1 and carried verbatim in Sources.
  • All dollar figures and gap percentages in the post appear in the Sources table or bullets. Prices shown as whole dollars in the post per spec; price band retains the raw $54.90 / $899.99 / $84.995 figures from the brief.

Format note

Whole Shelf, scope Bourbon (whisky_style), vintage 2026-10-01.1, pack whisky_style-bourbon-aggregate.json. Gap basis PERCENTAGE; ce_gap_pct=(price−CE 360° mean)/price×100, each bottle's premium over its own CE 360° consensus; 'hot'=smallest premium (least over fair value), 'cold'=largest. No bottle sits below its own mean, so 'hot' is not a bargain. 'Hot'/'cold' are value labels only, never velocity or trend. Coverage 38 of 38 priced live in the 2026-10-01 harvest (100%). Sources holds the stored top/bottom notable-mover cut, not the full ranked shelf.

Frontmatter as merged
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source file: drafts/2026-10-01-whole-shelf-bourbon.md