What Is The Cut Daily? — The Cut Daily is the free written brief from Chasing the Unicorn. Every weekday we translate the biggest moves in American whiskey into plain English, teach one bourbon concept you can use at the shelf today, flag one bottle under $60 worth knowing about, and curate three Hunt picks across three price tiers. Knowledge-first chase. No FOMO. Just what moved and why it matters.
The full American Whiskey Industry Brief — every story, every Hunt entry, every debate, every auction — is published daily for subscribers on Patreon. If you want the full pour, not just the taste, join us at patreon.com/ChasingTheUnicornPodcast.
IN TODAY'S CUT
The headlines worth your morning — before the rest of the brief lands.
Every bourbon got pricier. One didn't. Heaven Hill just raised wholesale prices on Evan Williams and Elijah Craig this week — but Wild Turkey held 101 at $27.99 for a fourth straight year. Here's what that gap actually tells you.
The biggest story this week is a split screen in pricing — Heaven Hill raising its value-tier wholesale prices while Wild Turkey holds its flagship bottle flat. That split matters because it shows you which production choices actually protect a shelf price and which ones don't. Today's edition also covers Buffalo Trace locking a lower-than-expected MSRP on its next E.H. Taylor release, a secondary-market floor crack on Pappy 15, and a fresh Bottled-in-Bond restock worth grabbing this week.
THE BIG MOVE
Today's lead — what changed and what it means.
Buffalo Trace Locks the Next E.H. Taylor Release at a Lower Price Than Anyone Expected
Event Date: 2026-07-14
Buffalo Trace just answered the question everybody had about the next E.H. Taylor release, and the answer is good news. The distillery confirmed the specs this week — 12 years old, 100.6 proof, and an MSRP of $54.99. That's about five dollars below what trade watchers were predicting. Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley said the pricing is deliberate. He wants the Taylor line to stay something people can actually buy, not just something people watch on auction sites. National allocation is set at roughly 18,000 bottles — a modest bump over last year. The release ships to distributors in August, right before the fall allocation season kicks off. Here's why the number matters. Barrel and glass costs have been climbing across the industry all year — we're seeing that elsewhere in this very window. A growing distillery choosing to hold pricing down anyway, on a bottle people already chase, is a real signal, not a marketing line. The real test comes later: does that $54.99 hold once it hits actual shelves in August, or does it get swallowed by markup the moment it lands?
What It Means For Your Shelf —Nothing on your shelf changes yet. But get on your retailer's Taylor-line list now — an 18,000-bottle national release under $55 will not sit at MSRP for long.
From today's AWIB Opening Pour. This is one of four lead stories in today's AWIB Opening Pour. The other three: Heaven Hill's confirmed wholesale price increase across its core portfolio; the Pappy 15 secondary floor cracking for the first time in six months; Wild Turkey holding 101's MSRP flat for a fourth straight year.
Read all four lead stories on Patreon →
FIRST SIP
The shelf-decision lesson hiding in today's news.
Why the Price Went Up (or Down)
Paired with today's: Heaven Hill's confirmed wholesale price increase and Wild Turkey's flat 101 MSRP — both landing in the same 48-hour window
Bourbon prices don't move randomly, and this week is a good case study. Heaven Hill just raised wholesale prices on Evan Williams and Elijah Craig by 4 to 6 percent, citing rising glass and barrel costs. Wild Turkey, in the same window, confirmed 101 will hold its $27.99 price for a fourth straight year. Both distilleries are facing the same rising input costs — the difference is how they're handling them. Glass shortages, barrel-wood pressure, and cooperage costs have been climbing industry-wide since 2023, and most producers eventually pass some of that through to the shelf. Wild Turkey's Master Distiller says their lower, more predictable entry proof keeps input costs more stable than distilleries that lean on younger, faster-turned inventory. That's a real production explanation, not just marketing. The takeaway: when a price moves, it's usually a real cost working its way downstream — and when a price doesn't move, that's often a genuine production choice paying off, not luck.
The Perfect Pour app — available now. Log a bottle's price and date in your Logbook this week, and watch how your Pour Print tracks value over time as prices shift around you.
Build your Rickhouse →
TODAY'S ENTRY BOTTLE
A bottle under $60 that's worth knowing about — one per edition.
Old Grand-Dad 114
$32.99Restocking now through August at national retail with wide distribution — this is a shelf staple, not a chase.
Flavor Profile —Assertive black pepper and clove up front from its high-rye mash bill, with a surprisingly smooth finish for a 114-proof bourbon.
Production Context —Bottled at barrel-adjacent strength without an age statement, from Beam Suntory's traditional high-rye recipe. This week's $2 MSRP bump — tied to rising barrel and glass costs — still leaves it among the best barrel-proof-adjacent values on the shelf.
Why This Matters —This is what a real high-rye bourbon tastes like without paying allocated-tier prices, and it's a useful anchor bottle if you're trying to figure out whether you prefer rye spice over wheated softness.
THE CHASE
Three bottles across three price tiers — what to buy, what to wait on, what to skip.
How to read the chase ratings
YESworth chasing
WATCHhold for now
PASSskip this one
Bottle 1 — Under $80
Blanton's Gold Edition — Export-Return Allocation
Window: July 14–31, 2026
Where: Select Kentucky and national premium accounts
MSRP: $79.99
Flavor Profile — A richer, oilier mouthfeel than standard Blanton's at 103 proof, with dark cherry and toasted pecan carrying through a long finish.
YES
Rationale — This bottle has historically been export-only — Sazerac is routing a limited domestic allocation to U.S. accounts this month as part of a broader supply rebalancing, so this window won't stay open long.
Bottle 2 — $80 to $200
Michter's Toasted Barrel Finish 2026
Window: Pre-order window open now through July 20, 2026
Where: Michter's Fort Nelson Distillery, Louisville, KY; select national retailers
MSRP: $99.99
Flavor Profile — Vanilla bean, brown butter, and a distinctly nutty secondary-oak note from the extra toasting step.
YES
Rationale — Michter's is shipping this release with a fixed national MSRP for the first time after two years of retailer-variable pricing — a direct response to secondary-market confusion, and a real test of whether that discipline holds once it hits shelves.
Bottle 3 — $200 and up
No new $200-plus release surfaced in today's Hunt window. Sometimes the high end is quiet, and that's fine — we'd rather say so than pad the list with a bottle you saw yesterday.
Today's AWIB Hunt section covers 5 active drops, lotteries, and walk-up windows with full palate direction, rationale, and the Hunt Intelligence Note.
See the full Hunt on Patreon →
THE BAR TALK
What bourbon drinkers are debating right now — and what the argument teaches the rest of us.
Is Heaven Hill's Price Increase a Real Cost Pass-Through, or Is Value-Tier Bourbon Becoming an Easy Place to Quietly Raise Margin?
Heaven Hill just told its distributors that Evan Williams and Elijah Craig prices are going up 4 to 6 percent, effective this week. One camp says this is straightforward — glass and barrel costs have been climbing industry-wide since 2023, and this is just Heaven Hill catching up. A more skeptical camp thinks value-tier bourbon is an easy place to quietly raise margin, because buyers barely notice a couple extra dollars on a $22 bottle the way they'd notice it on a $200 one.
The Math —
Heaven Hill notified distributors of the increase for orders placed after July 14, with retail effects expected within two to three weeks depending on regional turnover. The company confirmed premium and allocated releases — Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, Parker's Heritage — are unaffected and run on separate pricing schedules.
What It Means For The Rest Of Us —
The cost pressure is real, but so is the timing — this landed right next to a rival's price freeze. Buy before the shelf catches up.
Today's AWIB Bar Talk has 2 more debates with full source citations, fact-checked positions, and editorial assessment.
Read the full debates on Patreon →
SECONDARY SPOTLIGHT
One auction story from this window — and what it teaches us about the market.
Pappy Van Winkle 15-Year
Realized Price
$780
Peak Price
$860
Floor Erosion
↓ 9.3%
($860 − $780) ÷ $860 × 100 = 9.3% erosion
What Floor Erosion Means —
Floor erosion just measures how far a bottle's resale price has fallen from its recent high. Pappy 15 held steady in an $840-$860 range for six months — then dropped to about $780 in this week's tracked auction cycle. That's the first real crack in its floor since January, and it matters because Pappy 15 has functioned as an informal benchmark for the entire wheated-allocated category. When a benchmark bottle moves after holding steady that long, collectors read it as more than noise.
The lesson: A bottle that resisted six months of softening elsewhere in the category, then cracked only after sustained pressure, looks more like a delayed correction catching up than a fresh shock.
Today's AWIB Secondary section grades 2 more bottles with realized prices, floor erosion math, lineage notes, and buy/hold/sell calls.
Read the full secondary report on Patreon →
ALSO IN TODAY'S AWIB
What you're missing in the full brief — in order, by section.
Today's Flight: E.H. Taylor Jr. 12-Year vs. Wild Turkey 101 — full comparison and verdict in the AWIB.
Today's AWIB Opening Pour also covers the Pappy 15 secondary floor crack in full detail and Wild Turkey's fourth straight year holding 101's price flat — both stories behind the Big Move pick today.
Today's AWIB Rickhouse Report covers Buffalo Trace's distributor letter previewing BTAC 2026 fall pricing — flat MSRP for a second consecutive year across all five bottles — full allocation detail in the AWIB.
Today's Full AWIB Includes (in reading order)
Bar Talk: 3 debates · The Hunt: 5 active drops · Label Room: 5 items · The Secondary: 3 graded bottles
Rickhouse Report: 5 stories · Regional Report: 3 stories
The full AWIB walks today's bourbon world in reader-forward order — the Opening Pour lead stories, the community Bar Talk, the side-by-side Flight comparison, every active Hunt window, the full Label Room pipeline, the Secondary market grading, and the industry-depth Rickhouse, Regional, and Research Notes coverage. Plus full source trail.
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