Bourbon & Chocolate

When I started drinking bourbon a few years ago, I drank the stuff that is widely available like Maker's Mark, Woodford Reserve, Wild Turkey and a few others you are probably familiar with.  Those brands aren't bad; I still enjoy them from time to time.  But like any hobby, there's a lot more to bourbon than that.  Serious bourbon enthusiasts chase after certain bottles and brands that have become very difficult to find.  As I moved from the easy to find stuff to the harder to find brands, I sought out some advice from my bourbon message board as to how to find these brands.  The consensus was to make acquaintances (friends even) with the owner of your favorite liquor store.

My store is Harry's Reserve in SE Washington, DC. I've been going in a couple times a week for about a year now, often when the store is not so busy.  (I work nearby, so sometimes I go into to peruse during my lunch break.) And the thing is, the year-long relationship building worked.  The owner alerted me when he got his allotment of Pappy van Winkle, which was a huge score.  And last Friday I went in after work, completely not planning on buying anything, when the owner tapped me on the arm and said, "I've got a bottle you might be interested in."  And sure enough it was a bottle of William Larue Weller from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection.  It's a fantastic bourbon that's fairly hard to find in DC.   So I said, "I'll take it."  I don't know how he got that bottle, but I'm damn glad he did.