From the front page · Thread · The whole shelf · 2026-09-10

Single malt's fair-value spread is the widest of any shelf

mergedmay_publish falsequality passsite_publish trueprices: 10 price claim(s) verified live

1/This is the widest fair-value spread on any shelf we run. Single malt reaches from a bottle sitting under one percent over its own jury to one sitting almost seventy percent over. Same yardstick end to end. 125 bottles, every one priced live at Dan Murphy's this Thursday.

2/Scored on one thing: the gap between each ticket and what its own 360° jury of peers calls fair. I use percent because the money spans too far — a $54 malt shares this shelf with an $800 one. No bottle sits below its jury, so "hot" is just the smallest premium, not a deal.

3/The smallest premiums sit at the cheap Scotch end. Closest of all is the Glen Moray Classic litre, $88 and eight-tenths of a percent clear. Its 700mL and Glen Grant Arboralis both hold $71. The Sherry Cask and Peated Glen Morays land at $72, barely a point over.

4/Across the whole style the flavour won't sit still: peat and smoke at one end, sherry and vanilla at the other, a sweet chocolate note through the middle. That vocabulary is pooled straight from the shelf's own reviews. Wide character, because the shelf is wide.

5/The cold end has one clear outlier. Dunedin Double Cask, a 500mL New Zealand malt at $120, sits almost seventy percent over its own jury — roughly double the next gap along. A live price, not a stale one, so mind the small format, but it's no error.

6/Behind it the usual dear names. Yamazaki 12 at $359, about 34% over. Lark Cask Strength (500mL) at $190, near 34%. Hakushu 12 at $348, close to 31%. Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23 at $559, 28%. Japanese age statements and a cask-strength Tassie doing most of the work.

7/Net of it: on the single-malt shelf the fair value clusters at the cheap Scotch end, while Japan and cask strength push the premiums, and one 500mL New Zealander sits past everything. Buying honest this week — the $88 Glen Moray litre, or something dearer with a story?

Sources

Coverage: 125 of 125 members priced live in the 2026-09-10 harvest (100%) — grounding.coverage.
Price band $53.99–$800.00, median $116.495; scope-average CE 360° mean ≈ $140.4684 — grounding.price_band, grounding.ce_360_mean_avg. Widest min-to-max span of any scope this cycle.
CE 360° gaps, per item — whisky_style-single-malt-aggregate.json (top/bottom gap movers), vintage 2026-09-10.r.
Shelf character words (style-level, parent-relative, pooled over 110 reviews): peat, sherry, vanilla, smoke, expression, sweet, notes, chocolate, hint, whisky — grounding.words. No per-bottle tasting notes are asserted; the words describe the shelf, not any one bottle.

End	Item	Price	Gap %	Priced
Hot 1	Glen Moray Classic Single Malt Scotch Whisky 1L	$88	+0.78%	observed 2026-09-10
Hot 2	Glen Moray Classic Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$71	+0.82%	observed 2026-09-10
Hot 3	The Glen Grant Arboralis Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$71	+0.87%	observed 2026-09-10
(hot)	Glen Moray Sherry Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$72	+1.02%	observed 2026-09-10
(hot)	Glen Moray Peated Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$72	+1.02%	observed 2026-09-10
Cold 1	Dunedin Double Cask Single Malt New Zealand Whisky 500mL	$120	+69.44%	observed 2026-09-10
Cold 2	Suntory Whisky Yamazaki 12 Years Old Single Malt Japanese Whisky 700mL	$359	+33.61%	observed 2026-09-10
Cold 3	Lark Cask Strength Single Malt Australian Whisky 500mL	$190	+33.50%	observed 2026-09-10
(cold)	Hakushu 12 Year Old Whisky 700mL	$348	+30.87%	observed 2026-09-10
(cold)	Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$559	+28.08%	observed 2026-09-10

Omissions

Full coverage: 125 of 125 members priced live this cycle (100%), no carried (last-observed) prices to name.
The Sources cut is the aggregate's stored top/bottom movers, not the full 125-bottle ranking; the sidecar does not store every member's gap.
'Hot' and 'cold' are value-position labels only — distance from each bottle's own CE 360° mean, never sales velocity, popularity, or a price move over time. No bottle here sits below its own mean, so 'hot' is the smallest premium, not a bargain.
Dunedin Double Cask (+69.44%) is a genuine live extreme, not a carried or corrected artefact — it is headlined as Cold 1 rather than set aside. It and Lark Cask Strength are 500mL bottles; the shelf ranks tickets as listed, not per-litre.

Notes for reviewer

None recorded.

Format note

Whole Shelf, scope Single Malt (whisky_style), vintage 2026-09-10.r (pack whisky_style-single-malt-aggregate.json). Gap basis PERCENTAGE (the aggregate's own, chosen by its price-range ratio: this scope runs $53.99–$800.00, a ratio well over 2). ce_gap_pct = (price − CE 360° mean)/price × 100, each bottle's premium over its own CE 360° consensus; 'hot' = smallest premium (closest to fair value), 'cold' = largest. No bottle here sits below its own mean, so 'hot' is not a bargain or a discount. 'Hot'/'cold' are value-signal labels only, never sales velocity, popularity, or trend. Coverage 125 of 125 members priced live in the 2026-09-10 harvest (100%). Sources holds the aggregate's stored top/bottom notable-mover cut, not the full ranked shelf.

Frontmatter as merged

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source file: drafts/2026-09-10-whole-shelf-single-malt.md