A Bidding War for Bourbon's Biggest Names, What "Malt" Actually Means, and a $70 Lagavulin 16

Yeah. That Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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This week's deals come from InternetWines.com. Three bottles, three different categories, all priced well below what you'd expect to pay. One Islay classic at a price that makes the ABV complaint irrelevant, one of the best new core range releases from any distillery in the last two years, and a barrel-proof bourbon that keeps proving why it belongs in the conversation every single batch.

I'll be honest — Lagavulin 16 isn't a bottle I typically recommend in this newsletter. At its usual $95–$110 retail price, the 43% ABV has always been the issue for me. For that money, you can get the Lagavulin 8 at 48% with more energy and bite, or the Offerman Edition at 46% with better body and more character in the glass. The 16 has always been a beautifully composed whisky — deep peat smoke, iodine, dried fruit, maritime salt, sherry sweetness — but the low bottling strength holds it back from being everything it could be, especially when the rest of the Lagavulin lineup gives you more intensity for similar or less money. That said, at $70? The math changes completely. This is a 16-year-old Islay single malt from one of the most respected distilleries in Scotland at a price that genuinely doesn't need justifying. Pour it, add a couple drops of water if you want (and if you read last week's Worth Knowing, you'll understand why that works at the molecular level), and enjoy one of Scotch whisky's most iconic drams at a price that makes the ABV conversation irrelevant.

ABV: 43% | Cask: Ex-Bourbon & Ex-Sherry | 750ml

Price: $69.97

Typical US Market Range: $95–$110 at most retailers. Total Wine and major chains rarely dip below $90.

Savings: $25–$40 under typical retail.

Who's this for: If you've never tried Lagavulin, this is the price to find out what the fuss is about. If you already know and love it but have moved on to higher-proof Islay malts, $70 is the number that brings it back into rotation. A great bottle to have on the shelf for guests who want to understand peat without being punched in the face by it.

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Kilchoman is Islay's farm distillery — founded in 2005, family-run, and one of the few on the island that still floor malts a portion of its own barley using local peat. The Batch Strength is a relatively new addition to the core range and it's quickly become one of the best value propositions in peated Scotch. Matured in a combination of ex-bourbon barrels (roughly 70%), oloroso sherry butts (roughly 10%), and re-charred Portuguese red wine casks (roughly 20%), the result is a whisky that layers natural peat smoke and citrus with dark fruit, rich spice, and salted caramel sweetness. The barley is peated to 50 PPM — putting it firmly in heavy-peat territory alongside Laphroaig and Ardbeg — but the multi-cask maturation adds a depth and sweetness that makes the smoke feel integrated rather than dominant. Bottled at 57% ABV, natural color, not chill filtered. It's not quite cask strength — a few drops of water are added post-vatting to keep the ABV consistent across batches — but at 57% it drinks with the weight and intensity you want from a serious Islay malt.

ABV: 57% | Cask: Ex-Bourbon, Oloroso Sherry, Re-Charred Red Wine | 700ml

Price: $74.99

Typical US Market Range: $80–$95 depending on the retailer and state.

Savings: $5–$20 under typical retail.

Who's this for: If you drink Ardbeg 10 or Laphroaig Quarter Cask and want something with more body, more cask complexity, and significantly more proof, this is the upgrade. Kilchoman's citrus-forward peat character is distinct from both of those distilleries, and the red wine and sherry cask influence gives it a richness that rewards slow drinking. At 57% and $75, this is one of the best deals in peated Scotch right now.

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The first Booker's release of 2026, named for Booker Noe's love of New Orleans. This is barrel-proof bourbon the way it's supposed to be done — uncut, unfiltered, selected by Fred Noe from barrels aged across five different warehouses. At 129.1 proof and just over seven years old, it sits right in the sweet spot of what Booker's does best: big, oak-forward bourbon with serious weight and complexity but enough balance to reward a slow pour. Early tasters have found classic Beam peanut character alongside vanilla, butterscotch, dark chocolate, black pepper, and dried fruit. The high proof sounds aggressive but Booker's has a way of carrying heat without burning — add a few drops of water and it opens up into something genuinely layered and expressive. This is cask strength bourbon from one of the legacy names in American whiskey, and at $80 from InternetWines it's $20 under what most shops are asking.

ABV: 64.55% (129.1 Proof) | Age: 7 Years, 2 Months, 15 Days | 750ml

Price: $79.97

Typical US Market Range: SRP is $99.99. Most retailers are asking $95–$110.

Savings: $15–$30 under typical retail.

Who's this for: If you read this week's What's Happening section about the fight for Brown-Forman and wondered what Beam's best barrel-proof offering tastes like right now, this is it. Booker's has been one of the most consistent names in American whiskey for decades, and the Big Easy batch is a strong start to the 2026 lineup. At $80, this is an easy buy for anyone who drinks bourbon at barrel proof.

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Jeremy put the Glen Scotia 12 head-to-head against the Springbank 10 — a comparison that every Campbeltown fan has thought about but few reviewers have actually done side by side. On the Glen Scotia 12, he found a lighter, more elegant profile than its famous neighbor: salty Campbeltown sea air on the nose, honey, vanilla, and a subtle tropical fruit note — pineapple and papaya — with a malty, caramel palate and a touch of toasted oak. His main knock was a medium-short, slightly drying finish. Against the Springbank, he noted the Glen Scotia carried more malt character while the Springbank brought its signature funk — mushroom, old library, damp basement — along with noticeably more peat influence and a bolder, grittier delivery. His conclusion: the Glen Scotia 12 isn't a Springbank killer, but it's a very good whisky in its own right, easier to find, and significantly cheaper. He paid $75 Canadian for the Glen Scotia versus $100–$115+ for a Springbank 10 — if you can even find one. He scored both — and the gap between them might be tighter than you'd expect.

Score: He scored them both — watch the full review to see how close it really is.

Full Review Here

My take: This is a comparison I've wanted someone to do properly for a while, and Jeremy nailed the key distinction: Glen Scotia and Springbank share a regional DNA — that salty, coastal, honeyed character — but Springbank's funk and peat intensity put it in a different league. That's not a criticism of Glen Scotia; it's just reality. What makes the Glen Scotia 12 worth talking about is the value proposition. It's readily available, it's well made — 46%, no color, no chill filtration — and it gives you a genuine taste of Campbeltown character without the Springbank markup or the Springbank hunt. If you've never explored Campbeltown and Springbank feels like too much effort or money to start with, the Glen Scotia 12 is exactly where to begin.

Ruben at WhiskyNotes worked through four expressions in the Port Askaig range — the Islay brand from Elixir Distillers that draws from undisclosed distilleries (Caol Ila is widely assumed to be a regular contributor, and the 25 is often rumoured to be Laphroaig). The 8-year-old delivered a funky, vegetal nose — cabbage, sauerkraut, apple cider — with coastal smoke and good everyday drinkability, though Ruben noted it's a little rough compared to its older siblings. The 15 stepped up significantly with a deeply coastal, mineral-driven profile — sea spray, crushed seashells, herbs, and a mid-palate orchard sweetness that brought real balance. The 17 was the standout: razor-sharp and austere, with oysters, crushed seashells, precise lemon, fresh almonds, and a finish that lingered with herbal notes and deep salty ash. Ruben called it sharp as a blade with big complexity and perfect balance. The 25 evolved toward tropical fruit — pineapple, vanilla cake, citrus — while still carrying expressive peat smoke, roasted nuts, and seaweed. Ruben found it a really good Islay malt at an attractive price, though not quite stellar compared to the best old independent bottlings from its rumoured source distillery.

Scores: The 17 led the pack at 90/100, the 25 came in at 89, and the 15 earned an 88 — all three firmly in recommendation territory.

Full Review Here

My take: Port Askaig is one of the most underappreciated brands in Islay whisky, and Ruben's review highlights exactly why. You're getting well-aged, well-selected Islay single malt at prices that undercut the official distillery bottlings from whoever is actually filling those casks. The 17 scoring a 90 from Ruben — a reviewer who doesn't hand those out easily — tells you everything you need to know. If you're looking for serious Islay whisky without paying Lagavulin Distillers Edition prices, Port Askaig is a brand worth getting to know. The range rewards exploration, and the quality has been remarkably consistent across multiple batches.

Broddy at Dramface stumbled into this one the way the best whisky finds tend to happen — picking up dog food on a Saturday, wandering into a nearby liquor store with terrible prices and no turnover, and spotting a North Star bottle sitting on a clearance table by the exit. A 1988 vintage blended malt, matured in first-fill bourbon barrel for 31 years, bottled at 43.1%. He paid $180 Canadian (roughly £95). On the nose, he found a juxtaposition of still-bright freshness and deep oxidized age — jujube candies, orange furniture oil, candle wax, sawn oak, and the crispy caramelized top of a crème brûlée. On the palate, despite the low ABV, it delivered a surprisingly dense, syrupy mouthfeel with orange oil, almond extract, milk chocolate, mega loads of toasted oak, clove, black tea, cardamom, and moist tobacco. The finish was long and gently declining — jujubes, orange oil, toasted oak. He called it an old oak bomb, not the tropical silky vanilla experience you might expect from 31 years in bourbon wood, but a properly old-school dram that needed time and patience to reveal itself. The review itself is one of Dramface's best pieces of writing this year — Broddy wraps the whole thing around a story about his two dogs that's worth reading on its own.

Score: 7/10 — "Very Good Indeed" on Dramface's scale, which sits well above average.

Full Review Here

My take: This is the kind of bottle and the kind of review that reminds you why independent whisky writing matters. You're not going to find a 31-year-old blended malt on a clearance table and have a major publication tell you about it — this is the world of independent bottlers, sharp-eyed drinkers, and reviewers who write because they love it. Broddy's point about needing time with this whisky — that the relationship develops, like his dogs — is something I think a lot of us can relate to. Not every bottle announces itself on the first pour. Some of the best ones ask you to come back, pour again, and pay closer attention. The whisky was rumoured to be a tea-spooned Clynelish, which would explain the waxy, orange-oil character. At £95 for a 31-year-old, it's a reminder that value still exists in Scotch if you're willing to look past the big names. The fact that Broddy bought two tells you everything.

If you've been drinking whisky for any length of time, the word "malt" shows up everywhere — single malt, malted barley, malt whisky — but most people never stop to ask what malting actually is or why it matters. It's one of those foundational steps that gets glossed over in favor of cask selection and maturation. But without understanding malting, you're missing the thing that makes the entire process work.

Here's the problem barley presents in its raw form: it's full of starch, and yeast can't ferment starch. Yeast needs sugar. So before you can make alcohol from barley, you need to convert those starches into fermentable sugars — and that conversion happens during mashing at the distillery. But mashing can't work unless the barley has been malted first. That's because the starch inside raw barley is locked behind a protein matrix — it's physically wrapped up and inaccessible. Malting breaks that matrix down, exposes the starch, and produces the enzymes that will later convert it. Without malting, the starch stays locked away and the enzymes don't exist. Even whiskeys built primarily on unmalted grain depend on it. Irish single pot still whiskey uses a deliberate mix of malted and unmalted barley — that combination is what defines the style — but the malted portion is still there doing the enzymatic work. Bourbon mash bills are dominated by corn and rye, but that small percentage of malted barley is what breaks down everyone else's starch in the mash tun. Malting isn't always the headline, but it's always in the room.

The process has three stages: steeping, germination, and kilning. Raw barley is soaked in water for two to three days until the seed thinks it's been planted. It begins to germinate, sending out rootlets and triggering a series of changes inside the grain. The protein matrix surrounding the starch breaks apart — a process called modification — and the grain produces enzymes, primarily amylase. Those enzymes are the whole point. They don't do the bulk of their work yet — that comes later during mashing, when the malted barley is milled, mixed with hot water at the distillery, and the enzymes convert the now-exposed starch into fermentable sugars. Malting sets the table. Mashing is the meal. But you can't let germination go too far — if the seed uses up too much of its own reserves to fuel growth, there's less left for the distiller. So the process is halted at exactly the right point by drying the grain with heat — kilning. This kills the embryo, stops germination, and locks in the enzyme potential. The fuel source used during kilning also shapes flavor. Hot air alone gives you clean, biscuity malt. Peat smoke gives you Islay. The phenolic compounds in burning peat are absorbed by the damp grain and carried all the way through distillation into the final spirit. Laphroaig and Ardbeg typically request malt peated to around 35–55 PPM. Highland Park uses a mix of peated and unpeated. Macallan uses none.

Most Scotch distilleries today buy pre-malted barley from commercial maltsters like Bairds, Simpsons, and Boortmalt, who handle the entire process at industrial scale in drum maltings. But a handful still do some or all of their malting on-site using traditional floor maltings — Bowmore, Laphroaig, Highland Park, Springbank, Balvenie, and Kilchoman among them. It's labor-intensive, slow, and inefficient, but it gives those distilleries direct control over a foundational element of their spirit. And why barley over any other grain? Enzyme content. Barley produces significantly more diastatic enzymes during germination than wheat, corn, or rye — so much so that malted barley can convert not just its own starches but the starches of unmalted grains around it. That's exactly how bourbon works. Barley is the engine of almost every grain-based spirit on the planet, whether it's the headline ingredient or not.

So the next time you read "single malt" on a label, you'll know what that means at a level most people don't think about. Every bottle on your shelf started with a grain of barley being tricked into thinking it had been planted, then stopped before it could become a plant, all so we could steal its enzymes and turn its starch into sugar, then alcohol, then — years later — whisky.

A bidding war is developing for Brown-Forman, the Louisville-based company behind Jack Daniel's, Woodford Reserve, and Old Forester. Sazerac — the privately held spirits giant that owns Buffalo Trace, Pappy Van Winkle, and Sazerac Rye — reportedly offered $15 billion ($32 per share) to acquire the company outright. That bid came just weeks after Brown-Forman and Pernod Ricard, the world's second-largest spirits company by revenue, confirmed they were in talks about a potential "merger of equals." The two deals look very different structurally. Sazerac is offering a straight buyout. Pernod's deal would reportedly involve a share swap that lets the Brown family — who hold majority voting shares and have controlled the company since 1870 — maintain some level of oversight. Pernod's CFO confirmed this week that discussions remain "ongoing." Brown-Forman's stock closed at $29.57 before Sazerac's offer became public, well below the $32 bid, suggesting the market sees hurdles — the biggest being whether the Brown family is willing to let go. For context, the two companies have done business before: Sazerac bought Southern Comfort and Tuaca from Brown-Forman for $540 million almost exactly ten years ago. All of this is unfolding against a backdrop of an American whiskey industry under serious pressure — record inventory levels of 16.1 million barrels in storage, Jim Beam pausing production at its Clermont distillery for all of 2026, Brown-Forman itself cutting 12% of its Jack Daniel's workforce, and declining US alcohol consumption driven by health trends and GLP-1 drugs.

My take: This is the biggest story in whiskey right now, and it matters to anyone who drinks bourbon. If Sazerac wins, one company would control Jack Daniel's, Buffalo Trace, Pappy Van Winkle, Woodford Reserve, Old Forester, Eagle Rare, Blanton's, Weller, and E.H. Taylor — all under one roof. That's an absurd concentration of the most sought-after American whiskey brands in the hands of a single privately held company with zero obligation to report to public shareholders. I'm not saying the liquid changes overnight, but the competitive dynamics absolutely do. Pricing power, distribution leverage, allocation strategy — all of it shifts when one group controls that much of the category. The Pernod route is different but carries its own implications. Pernod's global distribution network would push Jack Daniel's and Woodford into markets they've struggled to crack, but it also means those brands become part of a massive multinational portfolio alongside Jameson, Absolut, and Martell. American whiskey would become a line item inside a Paris-based conglomerate. Neither outcome is necessarily bad for the whiskey itself — these are well-run distilleries with established processes — but the days of Brown-Forman operating as an independent, family-controlled company look numbered. And the broader picture is worth paying attention to: when the biggest names in the industry are either merging, pausing production, or cutting staff, it tells you the post-pandemic hangover in American whiskey is real. The surplus is real. The slowdown is real. Consolidation is how big companies respond to that, and drinkers end up with fewer independent voices setting the direction of the category.

It's been a while since I've given you an update on the basement whisky lounge build, and for good reason — we hit a wall. Literally and figuratively.

The original plan included a real-flame fireplace as the centerpiece of the room. I loved the idea — there's something about whisky and a fire that just works. But after going deep into local building code requirements, it became clear that making it happen in a basement build was either going to be prohibitively expensive, logistically nightmarish, or both. Venting, clearances, permits — the list kept growing and the reality kept shrinking. So I made the call: the fireplace is out. Completely. No electric replacement, no half-measure. If I can't do it right, I'm not doing it at all.

I'm not going to pretend this isn't a compromise — it is. A whisky lounge with a real fire would have been the dream. But the money saved is significant, and the replacement plan is something I'm genuinely looking forward to building out. The fireplace wall is becoming an accent wall built around an OLED TV, flanked by floating shelves with integrated LED lighting. The floating shelves give me more display and bottle storage — which, if you've been reading this newsletter long enough, you know I need — and the LED lighting will let me dial in the mood of the room. The OLED will be great for throwing on tasting videos, rugby, or just ambient visuals when the room is being used for what it's built for: sitting with a good dram and not being in a hurry to go anywhere.

I'll share photos as it comes together. More to come.

That's it for this week. If the malting piece changed how you think about that "single malt" label, good — that was the point. And if the Brown-Forman story has you thinking about what consolidation means for the bottles on your shelf, you're not alone.

If you know someone who'd be into this, forward it their way. More people on the list means better deals, better content, and more leverage when I go knocking on doors for exclusive offers.

Shoot me an email if you've made it this far and if you've decided to buy anything.

And if you're not already, come hang out on Instagram and TikTok — that's where I post the stuff that doesn't make it into the newsletter.

— Tim