A $39.99 Bourbon Just Held Its Price Two Years Running

This is The Cut. American whiskey, daily.

Thirty-nine ninety-nine. Two years running. That's the price Old Grand-Dad's new Bottled-in-Bond batch just held — steady, for a second straight year, while a hat company's first bourbon landed at seventy dollars this same week.

I'm John from Chasing the Unicorn Podcast. Here's what moved today. August 5, 2026.

Here's the big move. Beam Suntory just shipped the second batch of Old Grand-Dad's 7-Year Bottled-in-Bond, and the number that matters is the one that didn't change. It's still $39.99. This whiskey was distilled back in fall of 2018, using the same high-rye recipe as Basil Hayden, and it clears the federal Bottled-in-Bond age minimum — four years — by three full years. It's bottled at exactly 100 proof, because Bottled-in-Bond requires that.

The first batch launched last year at that same price. This one kept it. In a market where a lot of comparable annual releases have crept up year over year, holding steady is the unusual move — and it happened the same week a hat company launched its first bourbon at $70, and a Charlotte craft distillery cut its prices across the board on purpose. Three companies, three different price decisions, inside one 72-hour stretch.

I don't think that's a coincidence. When a distillery holds a number for a second year in a row, they're telling you they can — the cost math works, the batch is repeatable, and they're not chasing the market up. That gives you something rare: a fixed point. A 7-year, 100-proof, federally verified bourbon under 40 dollars, and now it's got two years of receipts behind it.

Now let's talk about a bottle worth actually going after this week, because this one's a real chase, not just a good price.

Copperworks Distilling, out in Seattle, just released Single Cask No. 97-2 — a seven-and-a-half-year-old American single malt, bottled at 125 proof, off Baronesse pale malt barley grown at a single farm in Colfax, Washington. It's finished in the distillery's only French oak cask. Not one of several. The only one they've got. Once this cask is gone, that specific pairing of grain and wood doesn't come back.

Here's the move: it's on sale now at the Copperworks tasting room in Seattle, and you don't have to take whatever bottle they hand you. You can walk in and fill it yourself, straight from the cask, or have staff do it while you're there, or have it shipped if you can't make the trip. That kind of direct-access format is rare — most single-cask releases arrive pre-bottled, sealed, and that's that. This one lets you be part of the last step. It runs $125 plus tax and shipping.

Worth knowing why I trust this one: a prior release built from the same Baronesse barley won gold at the 2025 American Craft Spirits Association Competition and sold out fast. That's not a guess about quality — that's a track record. So if you're near Seattle, or willing to have it shipped, this is the bottle to prioritize this week. Once that single cask runs dry, there's no reorder.

Now, a quick one on why prices move the way they do — because this week gave us two live examples pulling in opposite directions.

So here's what it is. Old Grand-Dad held its price. Oaklore Distilling, the craft producer out of Charlotte, went the other way and cut its prices on purpose, across its whole lineup, betting that a brand-new production facility let it lower real costs and pass the savings on as it launches into a new state.

The forces behind a move like that are usually one of a handful of things — barrel and glass costs, whether a distillery just built new capacity, how much unsold whiskey is sitting in a warehouse, and how price-sensitive buyers have gotten lately. A distillery cutting prices from strength, timed to new capacity coming online, reads completely differently than a distillery cutting prices out of desperation. Same action. Different story underneath it.

What this changes — when you see a price move on a bottle, don't assume the worst before you ask what's actually driving it. Sometimes cheaper really does mean smarter, not weaker. Log tonight's pour in your Perfect Pour Logbook — it's available now — and watch your Pour Print start showing you which price points you actually reach for, versus which ones you just assume you like.

So here's the one thing to take with you. This week wasn't about one bottle being a steal or one company panicking. It was three different distillers making three different calls on the same question — what's this whiskey actually worth right now — and showing their work in public. That's rarer than it sounds. Pay attention to who holds their price, who cuts it on purpose, and who's willing to hand you the cask and let you fill the bottle yourself. That tells you more about a distillery than any tasting note will.

That's The Cut. The full American Whiskey Industry Brief is free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com. I'm John Schuster. Thanks for joining me. Your unicorn is out there.