The legendary Pappy Van Winkle is the one and only best among all other bourbons. People claim it’s real, but the only evidence we have is in pictures, and it’s likely that at least some of those pictures have been digitally altered in some way. Maybe It’s also possible that it was just a label that had been stuck onto a bottle of iced tea, for all we know. However, a lot of people think it could be an elaborate hoax and instead be the beverage of choice for Bigfoot and his cronies whenever they get together for a game of cards in the old cave.

To drive home the point, bottles of Pappy Van Winkle collection is extremely hard to come by, and the vast majority of people will go through their entire lives without ever having the opportunity to try any. That being said, it does make a certain amount of sense, considering that their regular retail price ranges from $80 to $250, which is high enough to prevent a significant number of people from participating. This is before the bottles are sold on the secondary market, where they typically fetch somewhere between $750 to over $5,000 each.

Experiences of Bourbon Drinkers

Bourbon drinkers go absolutely bonkers for a taste of this sauce, and there was even a tracker app that you could use to locate some of it at one point. Even though it was terrible while it was in operation, people continued to use it because it was one of the few trustworthy ways to acquire a bottle that did not involve gambling or taking out a mortgage.

Moreover, this is the pinnacle of time to be a collector of rare bourbon. The demand for and interest in premium bourbon continues to rise. Premium bourbons are rarely available at some of the liquor store. The greatest irony is that most collectors won’t even bother to open the bottles, leaving the contents to hopefully rise in value over time. As a result, this drives the demand even higher.

Ageing Process of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon

The aging process is one of Pappy’s most distinguishing features. The 15-year label, considered to be the company’s “entry-level,” is aged for more than three times as long as Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, and for twice as long as Bulleit. The first three distilleries are typical. Some will be available after 3 or 5 years, others after 7 or 10 years, and a select few after much longer. The only expression we know of that begins at 15 and increases is Pappy’s.

More time in the barrel usually means better quality when it comes to any liquor in particular. There isn’t a huge difference in flavor between young bourbons, though we’ll probably get criticized for saying that. If all distilleries use the same grain mixtures, the significant differences in bourbon won’t become apparent until the whiskey has spent more time in the barrel. Most of the flavor is imparted by the barrels themselves; if you dump them out after only three years, your “moonshine” won’t have the same depth of flavor as if it had been aged through the Bush and Obama administrations.