Originally Posted by
Fraser
I used to live in VA but never heard of the ABC lotteries. I assume like most lotteries your $60 is lost if you don't win....do you know how many bottles the VA ABC get?
They instituted them this year, after several years of people complaining the waiting lists and other ways of handling heavily-allocated products were corrupt and opaque. The lotteries aren't much more transparent, but at least anyone can enter when they're announced. It's buried on the VA ABC website somewhere.
I heard the VA ABC got ~96 bottles of each of the ones they did in the lottery (10, 12, and the rye). They're still allocating the 20 and 23 to their ages-long waiting list customers, which they stopped letting people get on a couple of years back.
Good thing about the VA lotteries is that you don't pay until you pick up. That's how I have won a couple of 2nd chance entries, I suppose; the winners didn't end up wanting them, or weren't able to pick them up within 14 days.
Originally Posted by
Duke787
Very jealous - never had the chance to try any of them. One day maybe I'll get lucky on the Durham/NC ABC lottery (ha - not a chance). I saw the 10 year for $500 at a random liquor store while in NYC but couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger - if it'd been 15 or higher I might have pondered for longer.
One of the guys I work with gave me a 2 oz pour from his 20 year last year for Christmas, and IMHO, it deserves all the accolades it gets.
The 12 is pretty good, but it definitely needs a bit longer in the barrel. For the age (and the retail price, if you can get it retail), the 12 is fantastic.