Altruistic or greedy?

[Pete Smoke]

I for one think the retailer is doing something to slow down the collectors on this one. If someone like our old friend Papercrack (who stated he was a teetotaler) had to buy another bottle of Ardbeg to get this, he might have second thoughts because now he'd have to shift two bottles not just one. The second bottle he will have to sell at a discount because who is going to buy a bottle of readily available Ardbeg from his for retail prices?

Not really, Oogies and Corrys are very easy to sell, small loss perhaps, but only small. Same with the 10yo too.

[Pete Smoke]

Orange Barnet


There are good fairies, elves, pixies, etc, all around us. But most people can't free their minds enough to see them. So, they don't
receive the magic gifts that could be theirs....tee hee.

I want to learn how to free my mind.

I freed my mind some time ago, i haven't seen it since, now i've lost it.

[orange_barnet]

Orange Barnet


There are good fairies, elves, pixies, etc, all around us. But most people can't free their minds enough to see them. So, they don't
receive the magic gifts that could be theirs....tee hee.

I want to learn how to free my mind.

I freed my mind some time ago, i haven't seen it since, now i've lost it.

[dramtastic]

Orange Barnet


There are good fairies, elves, pixies, etc, all around us. But most people can't free their minds enough to see them. So, they don't
receive the magic gifts that could be theirs....tee hee.

I want to learn how to free my mind.

I freed my mind some time ago, i haven't seen it since, now i've lost it.

How would you know?

[Mr Tattie Heid]

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." --Dan Quayle

[quady]

No Islay trip or RMW queue for me. Life's too short.

But I may be lucky. There may be some 'good fairy' out there who'll magic me a bottle or two.

One can only hope.

If not, plenty of other bottles on the shelves.

Life is too short for Phenolic Gymnastics? Pfft I'm sure the Ardbeg day will be at least as good as last year, hopefully the weather will be a bit brighter.

And now the bottling is from two casks rather than a single the queue is pretty short. Actually thats probably why they have done this, last year it didn't sell out.

Its Kilchoman which is queue hell.

Springbank day is ftw though, no queue and you see your bottles being filled and sealed

[Arthur Motley]

A few answers to questions/comments:
"If RMW really wanted its 48 bottles to get to 'drinkers', there's an easy solution. Send some stock to each of its branches and instruct shop staff to allocate it to their most loyal and most regular customers. Customers that they know buy to drink. Easy."
- This would be a horrible scrap between staff who personally look after their own 'best' customers. Plus, there would be some horrible converstations with very good customers who find out after the event that they weren't 'chosen' to be given 'the right' to buy a bottle (It also sounds a little like those recorded messages 'You have been selected from our database of customers to be lucky enough to buy..')
It would also be already sold out and we wouldn't have the excuse to have a big bottle open for tasting and some nice Ardbeg Day festivities to go with it.
To clarify, Ardbeg's one stipulation was that sales were through our Embassy (which is our Edinburgh shop, the others aren't Embassy). Fair enough from my side, don't argue with the Big Dawg (that's Shortie, and he's meaner than he looks)

"RMW's or Ardbeg's Idea?"
- Mine, but talked through carefully with MD and Edinburgh shop Manager. Interestingly when I mentioned it to Ardbeg they felt it was a good idea and had thought of it but not dared suggest it!

"Altruistic or Greedy?"
- Altruistic would certainly be too kind on us. Obviously, the extra sales of Ardbeg are good, but this is not why we are doing it this way. I can only make an admittedly unproveable promise that this is not how any of us are thinking about 2nd June. If we were really greedy, we could triple our money on ebay after all.

Opening at 10am
- Fair point. We did this because then a potential queue (if there is one!) does not disrupt our daily business as we are a small shop.

Someone mentioned opening the bottles in store in the thread. This came up on a previous release of something or other and I would love to do it like this, but I was shouted down by other staff before I could look into the legality of it!

Over all, with lots of different ways of doing this I was really hopeful that it was a way that we would be seen to be reasonable to lots of customers. Compared to the sales of 48 bottles of 10/Uggie/Corry, this is much more important to us. Some of you have correctly highlighted the PR element of the whole thing...number one priority for us to not make a good thing (some cases of a hard-to-obtain and tasty whisky at a reasonable price) a bad thing (lots of disappointed customers, whisky fans not getting bottles because they all get bought for Ebay, offending loyal customers).

Hope to see some of you on 2nd June. It the terms of the Ardbeg Day bottle don't suit, then please come in for a taste of it from our 4.5 litre bottle (imagine what we could have got for THAT on Ebay!)


Arthur
Royal Mile Whiskies and Drinkmonger

[Exciseman]

Your reply regarding simply allocating stock to RMW's best regular customers is interesting. Surely, this is something that most whisky retailers do most of the time. I've lost count of the times that I've been into shops in London and seen zero-stock on the shelves, but little back-of-counter stashes with peoples' names on them.

[Lawrence]

With 48 bottles on offer you're not going to make everybody happy. and as for this;

Someone mentioned opening the bottles in store in the thread. This came up on a previous release of something or other and I would love to do it like this, but I was shouted down by other staff before I could look into the legality of it!

How odd. I suspect people who want to do this have serious control disorders.

[MacDeffe]

Why is that control disorder? I thought it was an excellent way to secure bottles for drinkers..if thats what you want

Steffen

[bpbleus]

Quote from the RM letter:
Of course we know what goes on, so we are trying to lessen the attractiveness of the offer to short term profiteers and we really hope whisky fans will think this is fair.

I'm just wondering what type of whisky fan would want to camp out in front of a shop to be able to get an underage whisky for a whopping sixty quid. Kids who haven't yet discovered that there is an ocean of whisky to explore, rather than the few odd barrels from a distillery that has sold its crown jewels and now needs to maintain a carnival show to stay in the limelight? Short-term profiteers who make an expression available to those who don't really have to worry about their monies and don't have the time to undertake the arduous trip to Edinburgh or Islay?

By the way, who has created those profiteering scumbags? Aren't they just pawns in the marketing strategy of Ardbeg? Isn't all this hoopla about Feis Isle and Advanced Committee bottlings hoarding Uentermenschen just a shrewd way to attract cheap attention for make benefit of the glorious core range of Ardbeg?

RM is part of the puppet show. If they really put the whisky fan at the top of their list, they'd break the seals of the bottles before ringing them up (what legal issues?). Or better still, they'd declare the Ardbeg ambassador a persona non grata and close the Embassy.

[Daz Quinn]

I often buy whisky 3 or 4 years before I open it. I have most of the Ardbeg special bottlings and all will be opened and drunk at a time of my choosing.

Surely putting them on the website at an unannounced time on a first come basis (1 bottle only) would be the fairest system rather than limiting the sale to those people living in Edinburgh or in the city on that day.

As for loyal customers I have spent well over £50k with the main internet sellers and yet none of them have ever replied to one of my emails when I have enquired about forthcoming new releases!!

[Exciseman]

Although there are ways of ensuring that whisky ends up with "drinkers", what business is it of Ardbeg's or of RMW's why a purchaser is buying a particular bottle?

I have to agree wholeheartedly that the whole hype over Ardbeg has been crafted by a clever marketing team. As pointed out by a previous poster, the strategy has worked so well that there is likely to be a queue in the street for an overpriced young whisky.

[jsaliga]

Frankly I think the shop owner should do whatever he pleases and thinks is fair and not worry so much about what the whisky geeks think about it.

--Jerome

[Arthur Motley]

"they'd break the seals of the bottles before ringing them up (what legal issues?)"
I've checked now. Opening bottles on the shop floor either before or after purchasing is a breach of licensing. Selling open bottles is illegal as we are an off license not an 'on' license.

[enzot]

12,000 bottles.No age statement.An assembly of 2 vintages matured in bourbon casks and finished in sherry barrels for 6 months.Cask Strength 56.7% vol.Perhaps not the most exciting Feis Ile Ardbeg bottling.

Cheers....

[DavidUK]

12,000 bottles.No age statement.An assembly of 2 vintages matured in bourbon casks and finished in sherry barrels for 6 months.Cask Strength 56.7% vol.Perhaps not the most exciting Feis Ile Ardbeg bottling.

Cheers....

12,000 bottles? Where did you read that? RMW are only getting 48 and I understood the total was a product of just two casks.

[enzot]

David,

I believe all or at least most of the Ardbeg embassies are getting 48 bottles each...I could be wrong here.

[bpbleus]

what business is it of Ardbeg's or of RMW's why a purchaser is buying a particular bottle?

None, of course, but their marketing story needs an evil character.

Frankly I think the shop owner should do whatever he pleases and thinks is fair and not worry so much about what the whisky geeks think about it.

Absolutely. I just can't stand the hypocrisy.

As for loyal customers I have spent well over £50k with the main internet sellers and yet none of them have ever replied to one of my emails when I have enquired about forthcoming new releases!!

I can imagine a large retailer would have to hire a full-time person to answer emails like that. In order to avoid being an anonymous customer, establish a relationship with one of the people in the store. A pm to Tim F (TWE) on this forum typically gets you a quick response.

"they'd break the seals of the bottles before ringing them up (what legal issues?)"
I've checked now. Opening bottles on the shop floor either before or after purchasing is a breach of licensing. Selling open bottles is illegal as we are an off license not an 'on' license.

There are plenty of other ways to make the bottle unattractive to 'non-drinkers'. For example, by gluing on a sticker on the label.

12,000 bottles.No age statement.An assembly of 2 vintages matured in bourbon casks and finished in sherry barrels for 6 months.Cask Strength 56.7% vol.Perhaps not the most exciting Feis Ile Ardbeg bottling.
Cheers....

Aaah, now I get it. An unlimited limited release. Then, obviously, you need some trick to get rid of all the bottles at double the price. Maybe I should go to the Ardbeg Day here in Costa Mesa...

[DavidUK]

[quote="enzot"]David,

But where did you read there was 12,000 bottles?

[orange_barnet]

“Not sure what a fair process could look like though....” is what I said above and I still think it would be extremely difficult to come up with a ‘fair strategy’ – and not only for the reason that someone somewhere would think it ‘unfair’. Fairness in the buying and selling of whisky (i.e. in the sense of ‘equity’, i.e. equal rights) is a matter of opinion and bound to be challenging and open to criticism.

How could it be possible to define equity in the context of whisky? Loyalty to a shop or to a distillery? What on earth does that mean anyway given that so many factors can underpin loyalty here – isn’t someone more loyal if they spend a huge proportion of a meagre disposable income than someone who spends a huge amount of money that has less significance / value to them? Factors related to accessibility (again this can have many different perspectives such as physical access to the place and timing of sale, knowledge and awareness, affordability etc.) can play a part in the argument. Then there are principled notions such as faith in (the quality of) a product, the desirability associated with rare things, peer pressure (unintentional or otherwise), the reasoning of a collector, and the views of the speculator. Fundamentally too is the question of why any particular whisky should be so desirable and sought after that it launches a controversial strategy for its purchase and a debate about said strategy. It may taste good (as do many others), it may be very limited (as are many others), it may be celebratory of a particular cultural event (won’t be the first or the last), and it may be representative of a particular achievement (again this will be true of many others)…..

The whole debate is not solely underpinned by the expectations of the (hopeful) consumer, but also by the expectations of those involved in the manufacture and selling of the product – it goes without saying that all of these parties hope to gain in some way. Whisky is a commodity of which there are seemingly endless variations and it is sold in a competitive marketplace. It could be argued that a ‘controversial’ approach to selling whisky might serve to promote it even further…. But on the other hand, clever plans can sometimes backfire.

I hope though that those who manage to buy a bottle to drink will enjoy it! I’d love to try the stuff (being an “Ardbeg fan”), and had it been an easier and more equitable process to buy a bottle, then I’d have tried to do just that .

[Mr Tattie Heid]

My father taught school for 35 years. He said he often heard students complain "It isn't fair," and invariably it meant "It's not favorable to me."

The people who are upset that they don't get a reasonable chance to get bottles like this don't seem to understand that they are part of the demand that makes them so difficult to get. Just let it go...once you realize that you really don't have to have any particular bottle, you cease to be a part of the problem, and you no longer care who gets these bottles or how.

[bpbleus]

My father taught school for 35 years. He said he often heard students complain "It isn't fair," and invariably it meant "It's not favorable to me."

The people who are upset that they don't get a reasonable chance to get bottles like this don't seem to understand that they are part of the demand that makes them so difficult to get. Just let it go...once you realize that you really don't have to have any particular bottle, you cease to be a part of the problem, and you no longer care who gets these bottles or how.

Wise words. But a world without problems is boring.

[gote]

My father taught school for 35 years. He said he often heard students complain "It isn't fair," and invariably it meant "It's not favorable to me."

The people who are upset that they don't get a reasonable chance to get bottles like this don't seem to understand that they are part of the demand that makes them so difficult to get. Just let it go...once you realize that you really don't have to have any particular bottle, you cease to be a part of the problem, and you no longer care who gets these bottles or how.

This.

[dramtastic]

I don't like Ardbeg, sorted...........