Hunting for American whiskey outside of America

[ChrisTaylor]

A friend of mine and I, we've put together an order w/ Whisky Exchange. WE ship to Australia. The range is superior than what we can get locally (i.e. I just ordered some Smith & Cross) and the prices are, too. By far. We pay a lot of tax on booze. Anyway, their range of bourbon and rye is good, I guess, in the sense it's better than what I can find here (mostly), but they don't sell anything in the Van Winkle range or Whistlepig rye. The Tom Handy rye costs as much as I'd pay locally once you factor in shipping. These are the products I want. I want a store that stocks such products but doesn't charge stupid Australian prices for them.

Does anyone know of an online store that ships intentionally with a good range of American whiskies? With a half-arsed Google I've found stores but none sell the things I really want (such as Pappy at less than, say, $200-600AUD, which is basically $200-600USD [depending on age]). I mean, if I had friends or relatives in the States I'd be throwing money at them to buy and post a bottle or two at a time, but that's not really an option for me.

Suggestions? I suspect that some of the cocktail/booze nerds elsewhere in the world--New Zealand, et al, especially--would also find this information helpful.

EDIT

Too, a nice-ish range of mezcals and such would be a bonus, I guess.

Edited October 9, 2012 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[tanstaafl2]

I sometimes order from The Whisky Exchange as well for delivery to the US. Shipping costs are a bit painful but for things not currently available in the US there aren't many other options. Have a Yellow Spot Irish whiskey on order that I hope will arrive soon.

Hopefully someone here has some insight that will make shipping possible for you. From what I have seen most US internet liquor sites either can't or won't ship internationally. I do not know if that is because of legal restrictions or not. As it is they usual can't even ship to some of the states in the US because of the insane, idiotic rules imposed by some states (including my own in some cases).

That said, not sure it would matter much if they did, at least for Pappy and to a lesser degree the BTAC options like Handy, Weller or Stagg. I don't know that I have ever seen Pappy on any of these sites because of the ridiculously tight allocations and the feeding frenzy associated with their release. BTAC bottles occasionally will pop up on a site but usually it is Handy or the Eagle Rare 17yo. Whistlepig did not make it to the Atlanta market until about 2 years after its intial release.

The allocations for high end booze appear to be even tighter this year as stocks of aged whiskey allegedly get more and more limited. Now the rumor is that Pappy will join Buffalo Trace in reducing their distribution to only once a year. Up until now it had been twice a year. Oh, and the already very high price is apparently going even higher.

I may well get shut out this year myself despite my ongoing efforts to curry favor with my local spirits retailers. And I don't even live overseas, I live in Atlanta which is not exactly a small town. Apparently I need to move to Kentucky since even a mere 400 miles away is apparently too far.

Edited October 10, 2012 by tanstaafl2 (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Out of interest, how much do you pay for Handy?

And, too, given you seem to collect these things, would you be keen to trade an Australian whiskey for Whistlepig?

[Shalmanese]

You could also ship domestically to an international reshipper service that will then ship to you.

Edited October 11, 2012 by Shalmanese (log)

[tanstaafl2]

Moved to PM

Edited October 11, 2012 by tanstaafl2 (log)