Dear Santa,
You of all people understand belief systems. Flying reindeer. Infinite bag capacity. A global operation that somehow works in a single night. So, when I say this, know I’m not here to ruin the magic — I’m here to talk about a story we keep telling ourselves long after it stopped being true.
Santa, MSRP is a lie.
Not a malicious one. Not even an intentional one. But a lie nonetheless — a number that survives on shelf tags and press releases long after it stopped describing how bourbon is actually bought, sold, or valued.
And nowhere does that gap between story and reality show up more clearly than at Christmas.
Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price or MSRP, was designed for a simpler bourbon world. A world where bottles were produced in predictable volumes, shelves were reliably stocked, and most people bought bourbon to drink it — not track it.
MSRP was meant to signal positioning, not reality. A guideline. A suggestion.
It was never designed to survive:
• Multi-year production timelines
• Artificial scarcity
• Allocation systems
• Internet-driven demand spikes
• Or a national resale market operating in plain sight
But bourbon changed. MSRP didn’t.
And instead of updating how we talk about value, we kept repeating the same number and pretending it still meant something.
Modern bourbon pricing is governed by three forces — and none of them care what the label says.
Availability
If a bottle cannot be consistently found, its price stops being theoretical.
Velocity
If it sells instantly whenever it appears, the market has already decided it’s underpriced.
Willingness to Pay
This is the uncomfortable part. Prices rise because people pay them. Repeatedly.
MSRP doesn’t fail because it’s “wrong.”
It fails because it’s static in a moving system.
Calling it the “real price” doesn’t make it so.
Christmas is when the MSRP fiction gets its annual encore.
A bottle gets unwrapped. Someone says, “It’s a $70 bottle,” while holding something that would disappear in minutes at several times that amount. Everyone in the room knows the truth. No one corrects it. The number is treated like etiquette — something we acknowledge out of politeness, not accuracy.
That politeness comes at a cost.
People overpay because they don’t know what fair actually looks like.
People undervalue bottles they already own.
People chase labels instead of understanding markets.
MSRP no longer protects the consumer. It confuses them.
This is exactly why the Bourbon Blue Book® exists.
Not to shame anyone for paying over MSRP.
Not to encourage flipping.
And not to turn bourbon into a day-trading exercise.
The Blue Book was built to answer one honest question:
What is this bottle actually worth right now?
By aggregating real secondary-market data and presenting it neutrally, the Blue Book gives drinkers and collectors the context MSRP no longer can. It doesn’t tell you what you should pay. It shows you what people are paying — so you can decide whether it makes sense for you.
Sometimes it confirms a great deal.
Sometimes it stops a bad one.
Sometimes it just quiets the noise.
But bottle-level pricing is only part of the picture.
Bourbon isn’t just a collection of individual bottles anymore. It’s a market.
That’s why Bourboneur also tracks a Secondary Market Index — a rolling snapshot of the bourbon market itself, functioning much like a stock ticker.
The index doesn’t care about:
• Press releases
• Allocation myths
• Or what MSRP says something should be worth
It tracks movement.
What’s rising.
What’s cooling off.
What’s holding steady.
And that’s where the MSRP fiction finally collapses.
Markets move. MSRP doesn’t.
If MSRP were an accurate reflection of bourbon’s value, an index like this wouldn’t need to exist. The fact that it does — and that it changes — tells you everything you need to know.
The holidays amplify confusion.
Bottles change hands. Gifts get compared. Stories get told about what something is “worth.” An index cuts through that.
It shows whether the market is heating up or pulling back. Whether scarcity is structural or temporary. Whether a bottle is gaining real demand — or just reputation.
That context doesn’t force decisions. It gives people confidence.
Confidence to buy.
Confidence to wait.
Confidence to open the bottle instead of treating it like fragile currency.
It’s fashionable to blame the secondary market for everything uncomfortable about modern bourbon. But the secondary market didn’t create demand — it measured it.
Is it imperfect? Of course. But it responds in real time, while MSRP stays frozen in a past version of the world. Ignoring that signal doesn’t make bourbon more accessible. It just leaves people uninformed.
Information asymmetry hurts drinkers.
Transparency helps them.
The best bourbon at Christmas isn’t the rarest bottle in the room. It’s the one that gets poured without hesitation. The one people enjoy instead of explain. The one that makes the evening better, not tenser.
Understanding real value makes that easier.
When you know what a bottle is worth — and why — you’re freer to enjoy it. To gift it. To open it without worrying whether you’re “doing it wrong.”
That’s the point.
So here’s my ask this year.
Keep bringing the magic. Bring the unicorns if you must. But help people understand that MSRP isn’t a promise — it’s a starting point the market may have left behind.
And maybe slip a little clarity into those stockings, too.
Because the best gift a bourbon drinker can receive isn’t a bottle everyone recognizes.
It’s knowing exactly what’s in their glass — and why it’s there.
Warm regards,
Bourboneur
Drop season is here—and with it comes chaos. Bottles hit shelves, secondary prices spike (or dip), and more than a few wallets get burned. To navigate the madness, you need more than hype. You need real data.
That’s exactly what the Bourbon Blue Book® delivers: over 9,000 bottles tracked, live market values, and constant updates—all inside the Bourboneur app. No noise. No guesswork. Just clarity.
👉 For $3/month or $25/year, the Blue Book pays for itself the moment you avoid one bad buy—or spot the right deal.
And bourbon isn’t just about bottles - it’s community—join 26,000+ enthusiasts who live this passion every week. From bottle drops and market insights to reviews and flavor debates, you’ll be first in line for what’s happening next.
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That’s Bourboneur.
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