Editor Will Price talks us through why bourbon prices are climbing so quickly. It's kinda bad news for lovers of brown spirits... and the trend isn't stopping any time soon. But Will puts it all into perspective, and explains why the Three Tier-System is mostly to blame. Also, Will just launched Chasing Whiskey: a monthly email update with new bottles to look out for, and whiskey recommendations from other readers. Subscribe to GP (link below), and you'll be on the list. Lastly: tell us about the One Good Bottle of whiskey you've been enjoying for a chance to get featured in our next email by reaching out to wprice@gearpatrol.com with the subject line "Chasing Whiskey".
Blame Whiskey Hipsters all you want, but the real culprit here is the Three-Tier System.
Chasing Whiskey: Bourbon Is Becoming Stupid Expensive. Why?
One Good Bottle:
Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Barrel Proof (~$65)
Also mentioned:
"Shelf Sleepers" – bottles worth picking up, even after a price hike
Nick Caruso:
This is The Gear Patrol podcast. In this episode, we're covering the rising cost of whiskey with Gear Patrol editor, Will Price. Will just launched Chasing Whiskey, a monthly email update that'll be sent to Gear Patrol newsletter subscribers. Each send, will include new bottles to look out for and whiskey recommendations from readers and industry experts, and of course from Will. The first story he covers and what we're talking about today is, why whiskey prices are hiking up and up. It's kind of bad news for lovers of brown spirits like me and the trend isn't stopping anytime soon. The good news is Will knows what's up and he puts it all into perspective. So buckle up for a barrel full of nerdery that might just leave you thirsty for more. Now, blame the bourbon, but Will and I both misspeak later in this episode, Chasing Whiskey is not a standalone newsletter. If you're signed up for The Gear Patrol dispatch, you're lucky enough to receive it automatically. Also, so you know there is some light uncensored adult language toward the end of this episode.
Nick Caruso:
I'm Nick Caruso, and I'm glad you're here. Let's get started. The cost of whiskey, meaning the bottles that consumers can pick up at their local bottle shops, liquor stores are going up and I think that sucks Will. I think it sucks. I don't want to pay more for whiskey. It's also the focus of the first edition of Chasing Whiskey.
Will Price:
Yeah. Somebody convinced people more powerful than myself to just let me spew the random thoughts I have into an email.
Nick Caruso:
I still have it in my mind that when I go get a bottle of bourbon from the liquor store, I'm going to pay 40 bucks. That's maybe just younger me thinking, just with less cash on hand, but bourbon and whiskey in general is going up in price. And you start off with an analogy to lawnmowers. Can you regale us with that? Cause I really like it a lot. It really is a fine metaphor.
Will Price:
I genuinely think the only thing that's talked about more in the whiskey community or whiskey world, whether that be Reddit or Instagram or other websites. The only thing talked about more than the price of whiskey is just drinking whiskey and like everything else it almost feels secondary to talking about value, which is an interesting idea in itself.
Will Price:
But I got the idea to write this piece when I was having a call, chat with my dad who is a nascent bourbon collector. Has always drank, Wild Turkey 101, when I was growing up, but he's now buying nicer and nicer stuff. And he asked me how much Blanton's bourbon cost. And I genuinely don't know how to answer that question because I don't know how much blends bourbon costs. Like I know it's suggested retail price. I know how much I could find it near me. I know how much a winesearcher.com says it is, but I have no idea what blends costs for him or cost. Everything, it's different everywhere and all the time, it changes.
Nick Caruso:
For reference, he's down south and we're in New York and just the same bottle could be wildly different cost.
Will Price:
Yeah, when I have visited him and gone to liquor stores near him, I have found products at 50% the cost that I might find them in New York. And then I found products that are twice the cost that they are in New York. So it's not always the case of, "Oh, the big city prices" or whatever. It's different, but to get to lawnmowers, sorry, I had to provide that. If you want a lawnmower, if you're going to buy a lawn mower or really anything I'm using lawn mowers because I thought it was funny and I was thinking about lawnmowers when I wrote it. But if you want one, you go, you identify whatever the features you're looking for, whether you want to push a lawnmower, riding lawnmower. And then you figure out the brand you want, then you figure out the product you want.
Will Price:
And that product probably has a website. And that website probably has the price of the product. And once you have the price you can look at the price on that website. You can compare it to Lowe's and Home Depot and Ace hardware and everywhere else that you can buy a lawnmower and... Or Amazon whenever, and you can probably get a price match. Something, but you know the price of the lawnmower. So you can't get ripped off by anybody really because you know what the manufacturer sells it for. Right?
Nick Caruso:
Right.
Will Price:
The problem is with bourbon, well with whiskey, that's just not the case in any way, shape or form. There are SRPs MSRP, they are in seemingly every retail category. But I know from personal experience that very rarely do people know what they are and even more rare, they matter.
Nick Caruso:
To put it into further context. You say that good value has always been tied to American whiskeys like bourbon. And that was the cause of what we call the bourbon boom, which is in the last five, 10 years, bourbon has really just become the spirit. Everyone is drinking bourbon now as opposed to whatever spirit from past decades. As opposed to scotch, which is still even more expensive. So can you talk about why bourbon, before we get into why is expensive, can you talk about why it wasn't and explain the bourbon boom from that context.
Will Price:
I think it's a fascinating discussion because if you talk to any folks older than, I'll say 35, 40, it's hard to put an exact age on it. But people who have been drinking for longer than 10 to 15 years, they will have a dramatically different idea of what a whiskey or what bourbon should cost versus somebody who's in their early thirties or late twenties or whatever mid twenties, whatever it is. And there's a number of reasons for it. But the general, the easiest thing you can track is bourbon and American whiskey in general was getting absolutely crushed in between the '50s, '60s and the '80s. Crushed by clear spirits, vodka, tequila, more party spirits, you're talking about greater trends, health minded spirits. It's not really a thing, we know now, but at the time, it's less sugar, it's more youthful and hip and young or whatever.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, vodka was a big one, like skinny vodka, that kind of thing.
Will Price:
Yeah, and those products doing so well, drove whiskey too. And you can read about this in a lot of really good books that Veech guy I mentioned earlier, has written a lot about this Fred Minnick. Cool of them, they have great, great stories about it. But you had whiskey distilleries who had been making excellent products for decades. In some cases more over a century, have to spin the product down to extremely low proofs. They started coming out with things called light whiskey, which it was like it was barely even there, it was barely even brown colored.
Nick Caruso:
I don't remember that.
Will Price:
Yeah. Just very, very, very different things to try to get their product, to sell and keep up with these clear spirits. And of course there are other factors, but this is one of the key things to think about when you think about why whiskey was so cheap for so long, because the price was driven way down. And we'll talk about this more and it won't suck up all the time, but the price coming up now, there are a lot of other factors that have driven up perhaps more than analysts would have expected. But the price going up now is not a huge shock to people in the industry.
Nick Caruso:
Okay, that's an interesting insight. Yeah, bourbon specifically, American whiskeys for decades even prior to diet spirits or whatever, were pretty cheap because people were making them, they were rum running. They were putting it in whatever jugs they could find and stuffing it into the wheel Wells of their model T and just going for it. So it's always been kind of like an underdog kind of.
Will Price:
Yeah. You see this in a lot of branding and this is one of my favorite discussion, that's a side tangent to this, but it's framed as like the blue collar spirit. And it was for a really long time, in some, in a lot of ways, as much as I dislike the term blue collar. It did fit that bill for a long time and it would kind of position itself against the fancy scotch drinker who sits and smokes a cigar in his leather clad lounge or whatever. And it's like, oh, if you're like the tough guy American, it's almost like Marlboro man personality, you drink bourbon. And that tracked with the price of scotch and bourbon at the time. Now it's safe to say the gap is closing dramatically fast, it's closing very fast.
Nick Caruso:
Speaking of the prices going up, you seem... Am I reading this right, that you relate that a lot, not just to the points you just made about having to compete, et cetera and becoming popular essentially, like spirits, hipsters, jumping on a train. It's also that, or maybe in response to that trend makers are also producing higher quality spirits. There are more premium stuff, so they can charge more or it can be bought for higher prices. Is that the right trend?
Will Price:
Yeah, yeah. So I think if no one who listens to this should ever read B2B publications about the whiskey industry because they're boring. They will bore you to tears, but it is interesting-
Nick Caruso:
You do that for them, right.
Will Price:
And I will relay the information.
Nick Caruso:
You're our oracle.
Will Price:
Much of what has been discussed in the last five years plus has been premiumization. And that premiumization essentially equals higher and higher-end bottles. That's because there are more people drinking it and because there are more enthusiasts than ever and because bourbon is such a huge draw for people who are... The hobbyist would be the easiest way to put it.
Will Price:
They can sell these really, really nice products in limited quantities or even in mass quantity. And they know that people will buy them. And when people are more comfortable buying a product for, we've mentioned two $90 bottles and a $55 at the top. When they're more comfortable with those, it can kind of mask or provide cover for rising prices on bottles that are kind of staples. The Evan Williams, your Wild Turkeys, your-
Nick Caruso:
Those $40 bottles I was talking about.
Will Price:
Exactly. I mean, Bookers is a great example of this. I love Bookers. I will always tell people they should, if you like bourbon, you need to try it at least once. Just two years ago, maybe two and a half years ago, Bookers was $75 and a couple years before that it was $65. And in credit to Jim Beam and Beam Suntory, they've never shied away from the fact that they've increased the price.
Will Price:
When they send out a press release, it says the price, they're not trying to hide it like a lot of distillers do. So I do give them credit for that but they have had supply shortages, which if you follow Bookers, you know that, that's the reason why there's a slight gap between the last batch and this batch. But it's just a fact that a lot of these whiskeys are moving up quickly and though people do, there's some moaning and groaning about it. They're still flying off shelves as fast as ever, it's not an issue for the producer.
Nick Caruso:
Maybe this is a naive question, but if this is a problem, not a problem, but if this is the trend, why wouldn't a whiskey manufacturer just make a pretty good, lower priced booze and really push it. I mean, there seems like there's a vacuum in that marketplace.
Will Price:
To answer that question, I think the easiest way is just to say that the lower priced whiskeys that sell, I mentioned Evan Williams, Four Roses, Wild Turkey 101, Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam, white, all the staple whiskeys, you think of them like the flagship of these brands. They are the ones that are making money for the brands. And they're there because they have such huge brand recognition already. It's hard to create a product that's up to those products' quality levels at the scale that they're being produced. Because the scale and the quality mean that they can sell at the price they do and it's still a good value, and they can continue to slowly creep that price up as they go.
Nick Caruso:
Right.
Will Price:
I'll be honest, it's not really feasible for anyone other than the huge macro distillers that already make these products, to release a product of unequal setting at the same price, approaching the same level of quality and consistency as those big, big, big bottles do already. I could not see it. I just don't think the economics of whiskey production or the math work in the favor of anyone trying to dethrone them.
Nick Caruso:
So then this trend, it affects everyone. All the bottles are going up in price, but it's more exaggerated for the more premium bottles then?
Will Price:
I think it's worth remembering that it is more exaggerated for the more expensive bottles and the people who don't buy those will say, "Oh, whatever." Like the people who were buying $80 bottles can, won't sweat buying a hundred dollars bottles. But the popularity of that expensive bottle, as I said, is allowing the lower price bottles to kind of creep up as well. It's hard to track because SRPs are not published frequently or in public at all for a lot of these whiskeys. You have to reach out to them and almost plead with them to give you what their official SRP is, because they don't want to... It's a bad look for them if a place is selling their whiskey $10 more than what their SRP is. So there's a lot of other factors there, but it can be a tricky situation for the distillery.
Nick Caruso:
Moving through your piece, you get to some hard numbers. You actually say this may be a slight paraphrase, but I think you say, "All of this, these reasons, provide excellent cover for accelerating growth in the rest of the American whiskey market, accelerating price growth in the rest of the market." And you cite some stats between 2016 and 2020 average price of a bourbon bottle like Tennessee whiskey, Rye whiskey and bourbon rose three and a half bucks about 9%. And that makes the current average, like $44 bucks, I think just over $44 bucks, that's going to keep going up you think?
Will Price:
I don't think there's, there's no doubt in my mind. This is these numbers, this is the fastest that prices have risen since this kind of thing has been tracked as my understanding. IWSR does a wonderful job of tracking these things much better than, than any non-industry person could feasibly do. There are some ways you can look at this yourself. Of course, that's the average for every type of bottle in those categories. So that is thousands and thousands and thousands of skews. You can go on a website like winesearcher.com and look at a bottle that you really like and look at its price history. And of course, that's not a perfect figure because it's an average of retailers that subscribe or use Winesearcher, but pretty much everybody you look at will have a line that's trending pretty aggressively upward, especially in the last three to four years.
Will Price:
It will go up. I'm not someone who could tell you how much it's going to continue going up. I did want to make one side point that isn't necessarily in this piece. I will say and we touched on it earlier when we talked about how whiskey producers drove their prices way, way down in the clean spirits era, if you will. And because so much of the branding was on this kind of like the Workman spirit, that kind of thing. Whiskey, it was under priced, I think by definition for a long time, American whiskey. Just think about, for a second, a bottle of Buffalo Trace. That whiskey is six to nine years old typically. It varies batch to batch. A product that you have to, you make one day, and then you go put it in a barrel and you just go let it sit there for six to nine years before you can make any money on it. And then you sell it for, they were selling it for like 25 bucks just a few years ago. And you can still find it for that price today. That is insanity.
Nick Caruso:
It is kind of wild.
Will Price:
If you told someone that in a vacuum and that's not even talking about how much they have to pay the distributor, then how much the markup at retail, this kind of thing. That price makes no sense. And the fact that they were making money on that at all beforehand is kind of shocking. So I should say, I only say that because I'm not a... It makes me sound like I'm schilling for these [crosstalk 00:17:40] increase in price.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, you're a lobbyist.
Will Price:
But it was truly insane to think that that was the price of these products, because there were vodkas that it takes a day or two to make a bottle of and it costs the same amount. It's just, it was the math that was insane for a while there.
Nick Caruso:
So in a way maybe this is catching up with reality. They're finally, because it's popular, they're able to just charge what it's worth and maybe we're reaching a homeostasis in the marketplace.
Will Price:
Yeah. And I honestly think if most bourbon drinkers, even the ones who may complain about their favorite whiskey that's become $5 or $10 more in the last few years, can probably admit that whatever price it was a few years ago was probably a little bit of BS. Because I really think you'd be hard pressed to find a scotch that was, like for example, Henry McKenna let's use that bottle, for example. Won a big award two years ago, it was $35 previously it's a ten-year-old spirit. It blows my mind that that product could be found for $35 for years and years and years before San Francisco World Spirits named it, I think they gave it Best in Show Whiskey or something. And now everybody charges $60 or $70 bucks for it. Which $60, $70 bucks for a product that again, had to sit in a warehouse for 10 years before anyone could do anything with it, it's still, it's not the worst value in the world.
Nick Caruso:
Right.
Will Price:
So just think about it when you're thinking about how much prices have gone up. It's not completely unfair in every instance.
Nick Caruso:
All right. Yeah, go to your room and think about it. You sound like you're scolding people, but that's a great point. And then makes me wonder where the equilibrium actually is. You also explain very briefly in this piece, which again is obviously just packed densely with information. The three tier system. This is the process, like the life cycle of a, say a bottle of bourbon. Can you describe that to us and sort of give us an idea of why that's important?
Will Price:
Yeah. So a distillery, they do not, the distillers don't sell products to drinkers. At least in the legal and in the operational sense. Distilleries because of the three tier system, without getting into the sort of insane history of the three tier system, distillers only sell-
Nick Caruso:
Another time.
Will Price:
Yeah another time. Distillers only sell to distributors and distributors only sell to the point of sale. So a bar or a liquor store and the bar or liquor store are the only people who can, or the only establishment who can sell to us, whiskey drinkers. Of course there are caveats like gift shops at distilleries or whatever, but generally this is the way of the world. It's a system that is unique to the spirits world. And it comes from post-prohibition and it's fraught with very, at this point a hundred year old legislation.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah bureaucracy.
Will Price:
It's a small part of this that makes pricing even more obscure or obscured, I should say. Because you have, and I mentioned this a moment ago, you have a distillery sets a price, let's say this is a $25 SRP bottle. The distributor they get that, they sold the bottles, the bottles then go to the retailer and the retailer doesn't... The retailer can sell the bottle for whatever he wants. And because so many of these whiskeys, Buffalo Trace is a great example, can now sell for $10, $15, $20 over what their SRP is. He could sell it for that. And that is effectively the SRP in that area because Buffalo Trace does not publicly or does not publish their SRP's publicly. I could ask them and they might tell me, but they have a vested interest in some ways, again, to not confuse the consumer. And very few of these distilleries have the prices of their bottles on their website for this reason, because they don't want to be blamed, rightfully so, I think it's pretty fair. They don't want to be blamed for a liquor store being able to capitalize on either scarcity or popularity.
Nick Caruso:
Which is what I was going to say, is that they don't tell you maybe to cover their own ass but also because it wouldn't matter that much. If something's super popular, this bourbon boom, thanks to all my neighbors here in North Brooklyn. The prices are going to be paid. The people are going to get them regardless.
Will Price:
Let me put my scolding father hat on again, or my company man hat on again. So think about these distilleries and so they're raising the prices and everyone blames them, but it's the people buying a Buffalo trace for $15 more than what it's sold for typically, that caused this. If you're Buffalo Trace and I don't know why I'm picking on them, they're not the only distillery that does this. If you see people paying 2X your product, what you stablish as the SRP and which also means that you've undervalued your sale to your distributor. You probably feeling a little bit shitty. You're like, "oh, like everybody, I'm not..." because they're not getting a slice of that.
Will Price:
You may be buying their product, but they're not getting a slice of this ramped up price. They see that and they're like, "Oh, well, I can, a few more bucks on the SRP, isn't going to hurt anybody because they're going to still charge $40 bucks for it." So they want to get in on the action. And again, Buffalo Trace is just on top of mind, but it's every one of these distilleries who are losing out for this reason and are thinking in this way.
Nick Caruso:
Do we need to put a disclaimer in here that you are not getting a cut of every Buffalo Trace markup?
Will Price:
I wish friend, I wish.
Nick Caruso:
Maybe we're on the wrong business. I don't know. You in this piece, one of my favorite lines is that you're not even really making a point with this sentence, but you refer to, "Skeezy guys in liquor stores asking proprietors about any special bottles in the back." Are you telling on yourself there? Are you going and like elbowing your local liquor store guy for stuff?
Will Price:
I've always preached that if you want really good, rare, more limited releases, the best way to do it is to be buddies with your local liquor store who gets the stuff. That's the first step. And you know, the second step of being buddies with them is giving them a little shit when they don't tell you what's in the back. So I may or may not, but you can make yourself look like an ass by doing it too often. I can tell you that much.
Nick Caruso:
Sure. I think people may be listening to this, if they're not aware of this trend, then maybe their eyes are a little wired. Like, "Oh man, I've been paying a lot for, and I'm going to be paying a ton for something I really love. And I'm going to have to keep paying more and more." But I'm going to lead you a little bit. You give advice at the end of this piece, you're basically say, "Just do it."
Will Price:
Yeah. The thing is a lot of the whiskey that we've talked about, the premium options and how they've climbed really quickly and how... And I keep mentioning Buffalo Trace because Buffalo Trace is so immensely popular. And because they're so immensely popular, the price rises quickly with that. There are plenty of American whiskeys out there that are still of absolute great value that not a lot of people ever really talk about. Whether that be the skeezy guy who's talking to the liquor store owner, or that'd be your buddy down the street who's like part of a local bourbon club or something. A lot of the attention is paid to the big time brands with their big time bottles I think ending, we're going to talk about one of the bottles that's a great example of like underrated undervalued in a moment here.
Will Price:
Look at brands like Old Granddad, look at brands like Bakers. Maker's Mark, the non-standard bottles are amazing. Pretty much everything Wild Turkey makes is still an absolutely wonderful value. My general advice is don't write off a brand because of, one you've never heard of it. And two, maybe what you thought about it when you first got into bourbon was something negative. Even Bullet has great whiskey, Bullet select is one of the best things that have come out in the last couple of years. And I think a lot of reviewers would say the same, but nobody really seems to talk about it because it's Bullet.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. Well you alluded to... I'm going to put a pin in that. I think we're done with that discussion for now. Young man, go to your room.
Will Price:
Yeah, before I get heated again.
Nick Caruso:
The newsletter will always end with a section called one good bottle. And that is, as you may expect listeners, just a primo recommendation from Will Price the man, the myth, the legend. And tell me about this one Will, it's called Jack Daniels, single barrel, barrel proof, which is a terrible name.
Will Price:
The name just ruined so much of it for me. Every time I've said it, every time I've typed it out. And then it also, I'm just a small rat. I hate the obsession with massive, the acronymization, I'm going to use that, of whisky fan hoods. So like I saw someone on Reddit call this J-D-S-B-B-S. So Jack Daniel's single barrel, barrel strength. Like what in the world? How are you supposed to know, anyways?
Nick Caruso:
So what we're referring to, if people aren't picking up on this is that the word barrel is doubled in this name immediately after itself. And when I read this newsletter, I read it several times before I realized that this wasn't a typo. I thought I was going to have to tell someone that you messed up.
Will Price:
I wish it were. Now, so the whiskey itself. So I think Jack Daniels' Old Number Seven is, I think it's still is the number one whiskey on the world by sales. It's either one or two, it's up there it's [crosstalk 00:27:56] yeah. And I've always found this completely baffling, which means it's like shirked in discussions of what is good whiskey and people who are in the whiskey geek world. I really think that's a mistake specifically because this distillery with the resources, with their... I mean, if you've ever been on a tour of Jack Daniels, they have all the really old buildings and everything and it looks all cool in history.
Will Price:
But the genius of Jack Daniels is their consistency and the science behind the whiskey. This whiskey, which is, when it's bought it's bottled anywhere between 125 and 135 proof or something, is if you like anything about Old Number Seven, you will absolutely adore this. It is that banana flavor. It is given like, I think I wrote about this somewhere else. And I said, "It's like classic Jack hit with the stuff they gave captain America." It is insane. It explodes out of the glass. The banana note in the old number seven is turned up to like 1 million. It tastes like banana cream pie to me.
Will Price:
It's very hot because of the proof, so it's better on ice. But this is such a, such an underrated bottle. I think it's available in the 60, 65 mark for a single barrel, barrel proof, had to put almost like a space between them. For a single barrel, barrel proof product that's a perfectly fair price. This is not something you would just pound on a daily basis because the proof it's something a little more, I think it's a little more special, but it is absolutely wicked. And I'm pretty sure you can find it almost everywhere, a serious liquor store, highly recommend.
Nick Caruso:
Great. And it's not new. This has been around for a while now.
Will Price:
It's been around for a while. And again, no one seems to care about it, but me, but I will continue to champion it. It's delicious.
Nick Caruso:
Well, the millions and millions of listeners who tuned into The Gear Patrol podcast will now love it and drive the price sky high.
Will Price:
Be $85 by the time I come back to the liquor store for it.
Nick Caruso:
Exactly. You did this to yourself. Will we got to wrap it here. We've been going a long time, but I can't thank you enough. That's a lot of time. And you are, I mean this with full respect, you are an unabashed expert and you just lean into it and it's always a pleasure to get the lowdown from you. So thanks for the download.
Will Price:
Thanks Nick. So we'll talk about whiskey and we can get mad about it anytime you want.
Nick Caruso:
Okay, great. I like that plan. So listeners, if you're listening to this, I expect if you're still listening that is. I expect that you probably want more information like this, I'm going to drop a link to the newsletter sign up below for Chasing Whiskey. So you can get all of Will's hot takes and recommendations in your email inbox every month. Also, Will you just mentioned that Gear Patrol readers will offer some suggestions via this newsletter? How are they sharing those recommendations with you?
Will Price:
Directly with me, my email is at the bottom of the newsletter. So wprice, P-R-I-C-E@gearpatrol.com. You can email me, subject line Chasing Whiskey and throw me any recommendation you want, give me an explanation, please. I had somebody email me just the name of a bottle and that was it. And a little more context would be nice. I can fill in the gaps, but I do need a frame to paint in. Yeah, but this first one was me, but I hope that the next one can be a mix of people who read the newsletter, people who are experts in the industry. Yeah. Anyways not just me, I like to delegate as much as possible.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. Well, that's it for this episode. Will thank you again for being here. You heard it here folks, Chasing Whiskey is the newsletter to subscribe to. Thanks for tuning in today. Everything we discussed today, we'll be including that sign up for the newsletter will be linked in the show notes below and of course on gearpatrol.com. Don't miss an episode of the podcast, subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. And if you're willing to give us a podcast review, we'd really appreciate five stars because that just jogs the algorithm to help more folks find us and join in on the conversation and drive up the price of whiskey. And that's why we're here and leave us a note with your review too, maybe a whiskey recommendation or some constructive criticism and anything else you can email me at podcast@gearpatrol.com. I'm Nick Caruso, and I'm glad you're here until next time. Take care.
Will Price:
Bye. Bye