1/Most of the blends shelf asks a little over fair; one bottle, Ballantine's Finest, sits exactly on its mark. I sorted all 77 blends by style, Scotch, Irish and Japanese, each priced live at Dan Murphy's. Near end: cheap grocery Scotch and Irish. Far end: Japanese and old Irish.
2/Count since the last blends thread a fortnight ago: 55 of the 77 now show a different price or a different zone against their own jury. That is 71% of the shelf. A fresh read, then, not a rerun of the 1 October one. Just a count, not a direction.
3/How I measure it: each bottle set against the consensus of its own ten-seat tasting panel, expressed as how far its price sits above that number. Every bottle here prices higher than its panel figure. So "hot" just means smallest gap above, not a deal.
4/Sitting right on the line is Ballantine's Finest, a litre at $69, level with its mean at 0%. Then Cutty Sark 700 at $59, Proper No. Twelve a litre at $91, Paddy 700 at $58, and the Johnnie Walker Red 1.125L at $79, all within 1%. Watch the sizes there.
5/Pooling what every review on this shelf says together: smoke, chocolate, a scotch-and-blends thread, the word accessible. That captures the blends category as a whole, across 64 reviews. It describes no bottle named above. Filler like "take" and the brand token "grant" I dropped.
6/Far end is Japanese and old Irish. Midleton Very Rare $434, about 35% above its mean. Hibiki Harmony 2021 at $730, near 34%. Then Nikka From The Barrel (a 500) $77, Chivas 25 at $646. Most honest blend this week is the $58 Paddy, unless I missed one. What's it going for near you?
| End | Item | Price | Gap % | Priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot 1 | Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisky 1L | $69 | +0.00% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| Hot 2 | Cutty Sark Original Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL | $59 | +0.14% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| Hot 3 | Proper No. Twelve Irish Whiskey 1L | $91 | +0.34% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| (hot) | Paddy Irish Whiskey 700mL | $58 | +0.38% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| (hot) | Johnnie Walker Red Label Blended Scotch Whisky 1.125L | $79 | +0.56% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| Cold 1 | Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskey 700mL | $434 | +34.84% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| Cold 2 | Hibiki Japanese Harmony 2021 Limited Edition Blended Whisky 700mL | $730 | +33.60% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| Cold 3 | Nikka Whisky From The Barrel Japanese Whisky 500mL | $77 | +22.85% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| (cold) | Chivas Regal 25 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL | $646 | +21.17% | observed 2026-10-15 |
| (cold) | Hibiki Harmony Whisky 700mL | $176 | +18.71% | observed 2026-10-15 |
None recorded.
Whole Shelf, scope Blended (whisky_style), vintage 2026-10-15.1, pack whisky_style-blended-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 or a discount. 'Hot'/'cold' are value labels only, never velocity or trend. This is the by-style blends shelf: 77 blends across countries (Scotch, Irish, Japanese). Coverage 77 of 77 priced live in the 2026-10-15 harvest (100%). Repeat scope: last led 2026-10-01-whole-shelf-blended.md 14 days earlier — CHANGED (55 of 77 bottles moved price or 360° zone, 71%, bar 10%), so it may lead again and the post states what changed. Several members are not 700mL (1L, 1.125L, 500mL) — sizes named in post. Sources holds the stored top/bottom notable-mover cut, not the full 77-bottle ranking.
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"format_note": "Whole Shelf, scope Blended (whisky_style), vintage 2026-10-15.1, pack whisky_style-blended-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 or a discount. 'Hot'/'cold' are value labels only, never velocity or trend. This is the by-style blends shelf: 77 blends across countries (Scotch, Irish, Japanese). Coverage 77 of 77 priced live in the 2026-10-15 harvest (100%). Repeat scope: last led 2026-10-01-whole-shelf-blended.md 14 days earlier — CHANGED (55 of 77 bottles moved price or 360° zone, 71%, bar 10%), so it may lead again and the post states what changed. Several members are not 700mL (1L, 1.125L, 500mL) — sizes named in post. Sources holds the stored top/bottom notable-mover cut, not the full 77-bottle ranking.",
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