Buying a Barrel

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Mon Jul 13, 2015 12:14 pm

FWIW Jamie...

I've privately emailed Luis Ayala - if anyone knows how to achieve your goal, it may well be him. Will let all know when he replies...

19Jamie76 · Post by **19Jamie76** » Mon Jul 13, 2015 9:16 pm

Thank you sir.

JaRiMi · Post by **JaRiMi** » Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:06 pm

Sorry for hopping in late into this discussion. In USA - I'm afraid I cannot really help, too much red tape etc shipping stuff there. In Europe, if you have good relations to independent bottlers, you can negotiate with them and see if they are willing to sell a cask of rum/whisky & bottle it for you. If you pay market price, I don't see why not, unless it is some rarity they want to use to market their own brand more widely.

Getting samples from various casks can be an issue - depending on where they keep their casks, getting samples can cost them quite a lot (e.g. Diageo's warehouses charge a few hundred GBP for getting a sample done from any cask - yup, you pay to get a sample from your own cask).

I have been involved in helping to get some exclusive bottlings to our market, and much of this relies on what is available as well as the relationship you have to the source. We have been fortunate to get a number of good ones here - Port Ellen, Rosebank, BenRiach, Caroni etc.

Large companies usually do not bother to do such individual casks - unless you are their local superstar sales man who just boosted sles by 3500% compared to last year, or a customer who buys stuff for them worth millions annually. The demand is also high now, so they'd rather stick to their casks.

You might get something from the bulk rum sales companies, but there's no guarantee of quality I presume...

19Jamie76 · Post by **19Jamie76** » Tue Jul 14, 2015 11:24 pm

JaRiMi,

Thank you for the input. Yes, I think importation, etc would be the largest obstacle to overcome.

I know K&L Wine out of California recently did some excellent bottlings via their Faultline line of spirits. These were brought in from Scotland. Obviously, they have a lot more pull than someone in my position, though they definitely aren't a huge company either.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 11:02 am

Ayala replies...

...as promised I did contact Luis regarding a barrel purchase in the US, and as I suspected, said this...

"As far as selling a barrel of rum to an individual, in the USA we are still subject to the multi-tier system imposed after prohibition. I am an importer and wholesaler, which means I can only sell directly to a distributor.

The distributor cannot sell directly to consumers, can only sell to retailers, which means your friend would have to find a retailer able to sell him a rum barrel, which means getting a distributor to agree to carrying it as well. Very complicated and a lot of administrative overhead (Federal, State and Local level) just for one barrel, but if you arrange for everything I'll be happy to supply.

We currently have over 200 rum styles in inventory."

Hope that helps...

19Jamie76 · Post by **19Jamie76** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:12 pm

Indeed...

We can shoot a piece of equipment the size of a baby grand piano out to an object over 4 billion miles away at 30,000 mph, but we can't figure out a way to fix our antiquated liquor laws.