Here is the story with the 20 and 23 year old Van Winkle along with the old 19 year old Weller, the original batches of William Larue Weller and even the 18 and 19 year old Jefferson, which is not a Buffalo Trace brand, at least as far as what I have heard in Kentucky. NONE of those are Buffalo Trace booze. Yes, all but the Jefferson have ben sold by BT and the NEWER stuff like the 12-15 year old batches are NOW BT, but the really old and really expensive stuff was all made at the old Stitzel-Weller distillery. Supposedly, the batch that made up 18-19 year old Jefferson somehow got sold to someone else when BT took over. BT did not own the Weller brands until they bought Weller from Diageo in 1999. The still don't own Van Winkle, but they make it....well, some of it. The Van Winkle company has technically not actually distilled a drop of hooch....ever. Van Winkle the Elder was originally an employee and then the owner of Weller, which bought the Stizel distillery The stuff was made by Stitzel Weller briefly before the Prohibition and brought back in 1972 by the family and still made at Stizel Weller. The funny part is that I have heard that the original Van Winkle was NOT a wheated bourbon, but a traditional bourbon with rye in the mash bill, so the post 1972 recipe is almost certainly pure Weller. None of these were produced by BT until 2002. Mr. Van Winkle the Current says that the 2013 batch may be the last of the stuff that everyone is gong after, the 23 year old because it is pretty much all gone. The point of all of this rambling? About the time that BT took over is when you started seeing those "wine bottle" type bottlings of exclusive Wellers, ert. The 19 year old Weller was the first that I saw and between my entire family, we managed to find one bottle after I bought the first one here in Florida. We searched here and in Kentucky and came up dry. The current 18 year old William Larue Weller is not quite as good. but still damn good, so you guys can grab that stuff. My brother has had some of he 20 year old Van Winkle and said it might have been as good as that old Weller release. The Jefferson Presidential is portly about the same as the 18 year old WL Weller. I think that after that first 19 yr old release, somebody realized that they weren't charging enough for that fantastic leftover stuff that they had ben playing with in the back of the warehouse for a number of years. So now we have 23 year old Van Winkle selling retail for $200+ and on the "open market" for thousands. Is it worth $200? Maybe. $8000? NFW!!!
it was $45 at the time.
