Even as the U. S. whiskey market recedes from its Covid highs, many allocated bourbons remain in high demand. Top-shelf bottles from Buffalo Trace, Wild Turkey, Michter’ s, Maker’ s Mark, Willett, Four Roses and other leading distilleries have kept their hype despite declining consumer spending elsewhere in the category. People still covet and hunt down unicorns.
Which presents a tricky task for beverage alcohol retailers. Stores only receive a small number of allocated products. The math makes it difficult. Allocated spirits represent only a tiny portion of a business’ profits, but can cause a disproportionately large percentage of headaches for retailers. No matter what, some customers will feel disappointed— or worse, cheated and ignored.
So how can retailers best sell them in a relatively easy manner?
Handling Allocated whiskeys in 2025
by KYLE SWARTZ
ON THE BACK BAR
One strategy that has gained steam in recent years is stocking many of these bottles on the store’ s bar. Naturally, this only works in states that allow retailers to operate an on-premise section within their business.“ While there is no good way to do it, we try to do our best job to spread as much juice out to every customer that comes in the door. First and foremost every allocated product will get a placement at one of our in-store bars,” says Adam Silverstein, COO, Garfield ' s Beverage Warehouse in Chicago.“ Every item we place on our bar menu is priced well below market pricing. Our goal is open the opportunity to our consumers to try these unicorns at a price point that doesn ' t break the bank. We also utilize allocated to be the focal point of tastings and raffles in the stores.”
Thus the backbar becomes a win-win for retailers that can stock allocated products there. It ' s a convenient way to pour these items with the most possible customers, making more people happy.
“ It takes the back room and secret handshakes out of the equation,” Silverstein says.“ Everyone has customers that they enjoy seeing and you want to help out as many people as possible, but we just don ' t receive enough product to satisfy our customer base”
“ We found [ the bar ] was the most approachable way to get juice to lips in as many consumers as possible,” he adds.“ It was well received. Our customers know that we don ' t gouge prices on allocated items and everything is priced at a below-market pour. If we were to charge regular bar prices on some of these items, I think that the consumers would view it more as a money grab than trying to accommodate as many people as possible.”
POINTS-BASED SYSTEM
Another system that has worked well for stores involves customers accumulating points whenever they buy from the business. People then gain access to rare bottles based on how many points they have earned.
Conti ' s Wines & Spirits of Southington, CT, runs such a program.
“ We tried to come up with a plan that’ s fair, equitable and transparent,” says owner Nick Conti.“ Anyone who walks in the door can know exactly where they stand with this.”
In a small state with a preponderance of good
14 Beverage Dynamics • Winter 2025 www. beveragedynamics. com