I owed a friend a pretty good bottle of Scotch for a favor, and knew he liked Oban Scotch. Unfortunately I had not checked the local price which is consistently $69.95. Not bad, but I was shooting for a $50 “thank you” gift. Enter the internet shopping thingie at Google which offered up Turnpike spirits way out east as having the best price by far on Oban – $42 plus shipping. Unfortunately the website showed “not available” so I called them and got excellent help. He had some bottles and I managed to order 4 of them. With shipping I’m going to be under $50, and have a few more nice gifts to give. Hey Dad – don’t read this post!
Shopping for scotch shows that the internet has not stabilized pricing at all – at least for Oban Scotch. This single product has dozens of different online prices, which is especially interesting given that locally the price seems almost “fixed”. I’m guessing few people buy liquor online – perhaps it is an impulse or very-close-to-Christmas purchase usually and therefore people go local? However it would seem this price inefficiency could be monetized somehow by matching low online pricing to high priced areas. I’m guessing that our local liquore store paid more for the bottle they are selling at $69.95 than I just paid Turnpike, so somewhere in here there is a business.
Joe Duck 
Hey, my old landlady back in P’Burg did some booze-price-stabilization work, back in the day. She had some tales to tell about it, too. Seems that there was a big price and opportunity gradient between the U.S. and Canada, but there were some barriers to entry in the form of revenuoors and the competition took a few potshots at ’em now and again…
Hey Tommo – should I hide my extra bottles at Poke-o-Moonshine mountain south of Plattsburgh?
Hi Joe,
If I may…I would suggest the following scotches as well. No fine collection should be without these reasonably priced fine beverages:
http://www.scotchwhisky.net/malt/lagavulan.htm
http://www.scotchwhisky.net/malt/macallan.htm
The Macallan 18 is the preferred selection – price wise anyway.
The Glenmorangie 18 is outstanding as well.
Happy Holidays
Thx Glenn! I’ve been trying to pull together a “Scotch Tasting” with some friends at the local English pub the “Black Sheep”, but maybe I should just order up a bunch of good choices and do it here..
Thanks,good article, Glenn. I myself overpaid not once buying things from the internet shops. Now I prefer just going shopping.
I used to have a single malt collection at my peak of collecting I had over 130 different single malts. Last I checked there were over 180 single malts. One of the best places to find a good bottle is The Canary in San Francisco – although their prices are not always the best.