1/The gap first. The Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask is $151 this week. Price its age, name, strength and style the way the rest of the range at Dan Murphy's is priced and you land near $186 — the price sits about 19% under that.
2/Where does that $186 come from? Age is the biggest part at 41%, then the name on the label at 38%, then strength at 13%, and being a single malt at 8%. Four features, and two of them carry most of the price.
3/The going rate is built from those four features, and none of them carries a price for tropical fruit. That is where this one is strongest: after the vanilla and toffee, pineapple, papaya and mango arrive off the rum cask. The price can't see the thing it does best.
4/A costlier stand-in? Glenfiddich Gran Reserva 21 is $328 this week and gives a Balvenie drinker about 73% of what this one does — $14.85 a pour against $6.36. More is not always better. So which matters more to you: the tropical fruit, or the extra years?
None recorded.
None recorded.
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