> On Jan 3, 2015, at 8:39 AM, Craig J. Ries <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 1/3/2015 9:18 AM, Raymond Feist wrote: >> >> VAT will do that. And what I’ve seen from my visits to sellers in the >> UK, they keep the prices stiff. We’re a much bigger population with >> more deep discount sources. Here, for example, Glendiffich 12 YO >> retails around $40, which is about the same (£26-27) as in the UK. But >> a store chain (like Beverages and More (BevMore) here in the west of the >> US) will regularly have it at about $27 per bottle, and even grocery >> chains like Ralphs will do deeper at $25 a bottle if you buy six. So, >> every four or so months, I go to Ralphs and buy a six pack. That saves >> me about $90 a pop, which adds up. > > Ray (or those living in Britain), any particular store from the UK should one > look at to try and buy from, whether online or in person? > > My wife has come around on Scotch recently, and so she has been eying The > Whisky Exchange as an online option to buying new things to try. We're also > going to be spending a week in Scotland as part of a tour in mid-April, so > we're going to have most of a day to spend in Glasgow at the end. If we can > find a good liquor store (or distillery) to check out, great. > > And yeah, BevMo has a nice selection. Binny's Beverage Depot, based in > Chicago, is a good one as well, both in-store and online. > > Craig J. Ries >
Whiskey Exchange is very deep, as is Masters of Malt, the Whiskey Shop, and a few others in the UK. However, you’re snot looking for deep discounts, only availability. In the US, I’d look at the Reserve Ba (rare, not cheap), Love scotch.com <http://scotch.com/>, bevmo.com for discounts in the US (pick a scotch and hit one of the price comparison website for cheapest mail order), in Japan worldwide whiskies.com is worth a look, scarce and sometimes nice discount. Last,garrafeianacional.com <http://garrafeianacional.com/> is a store in Lisbon that occasionally has rare and/or buys. Best is if you can find a local walk-in that sells at discount, and see if they can special order stuff they don’t usually carry. As for your trip to Scotland, if you’re departing via Heathrow, my best advice is wait until you’re in the international terminal (either 3 or 5) and visit the duty free shops—non UK citizens pay prices without VAT. The prices aren’t really great but you can bring back one bottle (two if you’re traveling with a spouse) up to the $1,500 total value limit on bring back stuff to the states without paying duty coming into the states). I do it because I don’t want to haul bottles around in my luggage while in Britain, getting liquids into Heathrow is difficult to impossible, so unless you put the bottles into your luggage in Glasgow you may have to leave the bottles in carry-on with airport security, and you just pick them up at the shop, carry them onto the plane, etc. Now, if you find more than the legal limit for free, it’s OK. Sometimes US Customs just waves you through and doesn’t bother, even if you’re in the declaration line, because they’re busy, don’t want to do the paperwork, etc. Even if they charge you, the money’s pretty paltry. I brought in about $800 worth of additional scotch once time and paid like $19 in duty. Best, R.E.F.
