Keep your dirty hands off my bourbon!

This is Ancient Ancient Age 10 Year Old bourbon, the best value in whiskeydom as far as price and quality. Several years ago a distiller from Buffalo Trace told me about this fine beverage and it's been a staple of my liquor cabinet ever since.

Until last week, AAA 10 Year Old was the well-kept secret of a few fanatics. Then someone wrote a piece about it in the local newspaper. Suddenly we can't keep it on the shelf.

All it took was a few paragraphs in a painfully mediocre newspaper to bring the mindless lemmings out from their cave-like dwellings to put their grubby meat-hooks all over my favorite bourbon!

On one level I'm glad more people are discovering this elixir of the gods. But there are two potential problems I'm worried about: Shortages and price increases!

Since it takes ten years to make this bourbon (hence its name) there's only so much available at any time. If too many rubes suddenly start guzzling a fifth of AAA every time their common law wife blows the neighborhood meth dealer, the distillery is going to run out and I'm going to be pissed off.

Also, while I consider a master distiller to be an artist above and beyond that Renaissance fop Leonardo da Vinci, they work for companies that want to make the filthy lucre. When the bean counters notice an increase in demand for this product they're going to raise the price. Right now a 750ml bottle goes for $13.50. By comparison, the same size bottle of Maker's Mark goes for $23.00, and AAA is as good or better. With gas soon to top the ten dollar a gallon plateau, I can't afford to spend too much on booze.