Bourbon Hunt: Some Big-Name Bourbons Are in Short Supply

On a trip to Texas last month I had a free night to see some friends. With the words of my mother ringing in my head — “you don’t show up as a guest empty-handed” — I swung by the local big-box liquor store to grab a few bottles. 

As I turned the corner into the whiskey section, I saw something I haven’t seen in Nashville in years: a shelf filled with W.L. Weller bourbon just sitting there in the wild. And it wasn’t alone. There were some bottles of E.H. Taylor and a couple of Elmer T. Lee. There were even a bunch of Buffalo Trace bottles. I picked up a Weller bottle and ran to the counter to pay for it, thinking this had been some kind of awful mistake — surely I wasn’t supposed to just waltz in  and be able to purchase it. 

Sazerac — also known as Buffalo Trace distillery, and maker of some the most popular bourbon in the country — has achieved what one Nashville liquor store owner described to me as “fetish-level” popularity. It began when bourbon geeks started hoarding Pappy Van Winkle, pushing the demand ever higher, to the point that the average drinker could never find a bottle for purchase. Six years ago, I sent a writer out to find some Pappy and was met with outright hostility from booze-peddlers already weary of people constantly asking them for a bottle. Weller started becoming hard to find at least five years ago as hipsters proclaimed it “Baby Pappy” juice. When I found one bottle of Weller at one of my local stops earlier this summer, my proud post on Twitter quickly got me a half-dozen direct messages asking where I bought it. 

The problem has spread to several of the distiller’s better brands: Taylor, Lee, Blanton’s, Eagle Rare and Sazerac Rye. Many of these are not expensive or even very aged whiskeys — they’re just well-made and happen to come from the maker of Pappy Van Winkle. Why the shortage? Well, blame it in part on geography. Nashville’s rise as a tourist mecca so close to Kentucky, the home of bourbon, means tourists are shopping for whiskey here like they would in Louisville or Lexington, but without the same supply. And you can blame it also on Nashville’s palate — we’ve got a high number of bourbon drinkers here who know their stuff, so when good bottles go out, they’re snatched up in a hurry. 

Walt Johnson has seen the problem firsthand at his store, Radnor Wine and Spirits. A small shop with a good reputation among whiskey and beer fans, Radnor received a barrel of Blanton’s in June. Johnson has been in the barrel program for Sazerac products for years, and it’s been a good deal for his shop — at the distillery in Kentucky, he gets to sample and pick a barrel of a particular whiskey, which is then bottled and shipped back to his store. In this case, that barrel produced more than 100 bottles of Blanton’s. It was gone in less than a week. Other shops report similar demand, including one owner (who didn’t want to be quoted), who said a barrel of Weller was sold out in 17 minutes after he emailed his preferred customers.

“It’s the pedigree,” Johnson says. Kentucky bourbons, and Sazerac products in particular, fly off his shelves. Another reason he participates in the program is to ensure he gets his allotment of Pappy every year: Sell more of everything and you might get an extra bottle or two of the most coveted stuff. Johnson keeps an extensive email list for regular customers that alerts them when something good comes to the shop. He tries to be fair about what goes on shelves, but his best customers come first.

“We’ve got people who spend tens of thousands of dollars with us,” says Johnson. “They’re going to get what they want, but not all of it.” I can testify to this. A few years ago I missed getting some Pappy by an hour when it went up on his shelves, but Johnson went back to his office and brought out his last bottle of 12-year-old and sold it to me. 

One of the biggest whiskey retailers in town, Midtown Wine & Spirits, confirms how out-of-hand things have gotten.

“Anything Sazerac has become just ungodly popular,” says Paul Patel, Midtown’s owner. “We get a lot of out-of-towners here as well, and we do not want to sell those fine whiskies to our out-of-town guests. Even something less expensive like Buffalo Trace, for instance. We won’t put it out on the weekends, we’ll put it out on Mondays or Tuesdays. That way it gives a week for our regular customer base to see it there and buy it.” 

Like Radnor, Midtown has built a sizable email list of preferred customers who want to know when the good stuff arrives. And like Radnor, he participates in several barrel programs. But with supply becoming an issue, it can be tough to get as much as his regulars want.

“They’re becoming more allocated,” Patel says. “They want to take our barrels away now. They’re shrinking the programs to where maybe we would pick out three barrels a year of Weller, and they’re shrinking that maybe to one. Everyone is cutting back because it’s become very popular. Belle Meade cut their single-barrel program out.”

So what’s a Nashville bourbon drinker to do? Well, first make sure you get on everyone’s lists. You can join some of the whiskey clubs at different shops, but those are limited in size, and at up to $200 a person, they can be pricey. 

The most important step you can take, though, is to treat your store like you would a butcher shop or farmers market.

“Get to know your local person,” Johnson says. “When we know what you like, we can help you find things.” 

Sure enough, when Johnson didn’t have the Kentucky bottle I was looking for, he recommended a Virginia rye from Filibuster, finished in French oak barrels, that I never would have considered.

It’s delicious.