I read this the other day, too. I like having a really nice glass of bourbon once in a while, but I'm content with a reasonably-priced bottle in the house. I have a friend who buys into it the hype, always has to have an exclusive bottle.

I stopped buying Buffalo Trace when I found out they temporarily removed their distribution in my market to make it more exclusive when they reintroduced it. For months, every time I was in a liquor store someone was asking where the Buffalo Trace was, and they always had "one last bottle" in the back.

I noticed the market shifting a decade ago when two different over-priced bourbon distilleries opened in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. Even Evan Williams, which was once content trying to fool drunks into thinking they were buying bottom shelf Jack Daniel's (which isn't even bourbon), decided to get fancy and expensive.