From the Blends desk · Thread · The whole shelf · 2026-08-06

Scotch owns the cheap blends; the dear ones carry a passport

mergedmay_publish falsequality passsite_publish falseprices: Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisk: no Stockcode resolved for...

1/Blends are the cheap seats of whisky, but the top of the blended shelf carries a passport. Fifty bottles across every whisky nation, and while the fair end is all Scotch, the dear end belongs to Japan and Ireland.

2/The honest base is familiar ground. Dimple 12 at $54 and Label 5 at $70 sit within half a percent of their own CE 360 juries, and none of the fifty dips below its mark. Scotch entry blends, priced to move.

3/The pooled words are grain-blend plain: smoke and apple, lemon and orange, sugar. Easy going across the board, which is rather the point of a blend.

4/The premium climbs and leaves Scotland behind. Chivas Regal 25 tops it at $646, but right behind sit Japan's Hibiki Harmony ($730) and Nikka From The Barrel ($99), and Ireland's Bushmills Black Bush ($71), each carrying the shelf's steepest percentages. The dear blends are not Scottish anymore.

5/So the blended shelf splits by geography: Scotch value at the base, a global premium tier on top. Everyday blend, the $54 Dimple or the $70 Label 5? (Dan Murphy's, this Thursday.)

Sources

generate_cycle.py replay payload, artefact 2026-08-06-replay/whole-shelf/blended-whisky-style-d461f2, vintage 2026-08-06.r. Gap basis: percentage.
Coverage: 50 of 50 members observed (100%). Price band $51.90-730.00, median $70.99; CE 360 mean-avg about $98.81. Words: smoke, apple, grain, lemon, orange, scotch, sugar, blended.
Hot 5 (smallest premium, all observed): Ballantine's Finest 1L $59 (0.0% over); Cutty Sark $59 (0.11%); Dimple 12 $54 (0.38%); Dewar's White 1L $69 (0.39%); Label 5 Classic Black 1L $70 (0.42%).
Cold 5 (largest premium): Chivas Regal 25 $646 (21.51% over); Hibiki Japanese Harmony $730 (19.20%); Nikka Whisky From The Barrel $99 (14.22%); Bushmills Black Bush $71 (13.00%); Johnnie Walker Blue x Rahul Mishra $368 (12.69%).

Omissions

Full coverage: 50 of 50 members priced live, no carried prices to name.
This is the blended style scope and overlaps the Multi-Regional Blend region shelf on the Scotch entries; the framing here is the cross-country blend category, led on the non-Scottish premium end.
The Sources cut is the aggregate's stored top/bottom movers, not the full 50-bottle ranking.

Notes for reviewer

Replay draft on 2026-08-06.r; may_publish: false and never flips in replay.
The Japanese and Irish bottles at the dear end are a current cross-sectional read of the category, not a movement claim.

Format note

Whole Shelf, Blended (whisky_style), vintage 2026-08-06.r. Gap basis percentage. Coverage 50 of 50 members priced live (100%). This is a style-level scope pooling blends across countries; ce_gap_pct is each bottle's premium over its own CE 360 mean; 'hot' is closest to fair value. Sources holds the ranked cut.

Frontmatter as merged

{
 "date": "2026-08-06T00:00:00.000Z",
 "title": "Scotch owns the cheap blends; the dear ones carry a passport",
 "angle": "whole-shelf",
 "position": "n/a",
 "status": "draft",
 "derives_from": "none — standalone; the automated cycle grounds this on the vintage build and live tickets, no long-form article backs it",
 "grounded_on": "2026-08-06.r",
 "may_publish": false,
 "replay": true,
 "review_priority": "standard",
 "artefact_id": "2026-08-06-replay/whole-shelf/blended-whisky-style-d461f2",
 "format_note": "Whole Shelf, Blended (whisky_style), vintage 2026-08-06.r. Gap basis percentage. Coverage 50 of 50 members priced live (100%). This is a style-level scope pooling blends across countries; ce_gap_pct is each bottle's premium over its own CE 360 mean; 'hot' is closest to fair value. Sources holds the ranked cut.",
 "claims": [
  {
   "item": "Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisky 1L",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 59
  },
  {
   "item": "Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisky 1L",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 0
  },
  {
   "item": "Cutty Sark Original Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 59
  },
  {
   "item": "Cutty Sark Original Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 0.11
  },
  {
   "item": "Dimple 12 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 54
  },
  {
   "item": "Dimple 12 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 0.38
  },
  {
   "item": "Dewar's White Label Blended Scotch Whisky 1L",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 69
  },
  {
   "item": "Dewar's White Label Blended Scotch Whisky 1L",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 0.39
  },
  {
   "item": "Label 5 Classic Black Blended Scotch Whisky 1L",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 70
  },
  {
   "item": "Label 5 Classic Black Blended Scotch Whisky 1L",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 0.42
  },
  {
   "item": "Chivas Regal 25 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 646
  },
  {
   "item": "Chivas Regal 25 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 21.51
  },
  {
   "item": "Hibiki Japanese Harmony 2021 Limited Edition Blended Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 730
  },
  {
   "item": "Hibiki Japanese Harmony 2021 Limited Edition Blended Whisky 700mL",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 19.2
  },
  {
   "item": "Nikka Whisky From The Barrel Japanese Whisky 500mL",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 99
  },
  {
   "item": "Nikka Whisky From The Barrel Japanese Whisky 500mL",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 14.22
  },
  {
   "item": "Bushmills Black Bush Irish Whiskey",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 71
  },
  {
   "item": "Bushmills Black Bush Irish Whiskey",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 13
  },
  {
   "item": "Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch Whisky x Rahul Mishra 700mL",
   "kind": "price",
   "value": 368
  },
  {
   "item": "Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch Whisky x Rahul Mishra 700mL",
   "kind": "value",
   "value": 12.69
  }
 ],
 "subjects": [
  "Blended (whisky_style)"
 ],
 "verified_at": "2026-09-27T05:07:31.000Z",
 "verified_by": "etl/price_verify.py (harvest sidecar danmurphys_whisky_products_2026-08-06.normalised.csv, as of 2026-08-06)",
 "verification_note": "Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisk: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Cutty Sark Original Blended Scotch Whisk: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Dimple 12 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Dewar's White Label Blended Scotch Whisk: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Label 5 Classic Black Blended Scotch Whi: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Chivas Regal 25 Year Old Blended Scotch : no Stockcode resolved for this name; Hibiki Japanese Harmony 2021 Limited Edi: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Nikka Whisky From The Barrel Japanese Wh: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Bushmills Black Bush Irish Whiskey: no Stockcode resolved for this name; Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch: no Stockcode resolved for this name",
 "quality_gate": "pass",
 "gated_at": "2026-09-27T05:07:31.000Z",
 "site_publish": false,
 "quality_notes": "soft template-structure: structure 'p2 p3 p2 p3 p3' shared with 4 whole-shelf draft(s)"
}

source file: drafts/2026-08-06-whole-shelf-blended-dear-end-has-a-passport.md