Shelf Turd

https://thebourbonculture.com/whiskey-info/proceed-with-caution-identifying-and-avoiding-shelf-turds/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/13557/stop-shelf-turds/

^ I thought you were referring to the time I destroyed a shelf the bathroom troll used to display gum and candy

Thanks for the info TheeOSU. I had just about given up when the term wasn't on Urban Dictionary. I guess an Ohio State degree has some merit after all!😉

That’s a new one. It’s a useful term for a bottle of booze that sits and is never purchased. Although, it appears sometimes Taters (which is another word I just learned) will buy those turds. I knew Crazyjoe had his own (alternate) definition. I’m just waiting to see how MackTruck defines it.

Alas, this rick has had a few shelf turds. It can happen to the best of us. You’re driving along all happy in an alcoholic fog and you want a lil’ more drivin’ whiskey and you reach over and you’re all “fuck me I’m out”. So you go into the store and they offload some shitty booze on you. If I wake up from my fog and realize that shit was pulled I typically go back and go wildebeest on the clerk. Only issue is that I don’t want to give a different clerk the wildebeest treatment. I’m a civilized rick after all. So I usually just make ‘em put up a sign with my mug shot and a caption saying “only sell this lion good drivin’ whiskey… ROAR!!!”

Whatever it is I better get a discount on it

Are there any common shelf turds? I’m not aware of whiskey and bourbon brands - and I’m less aware of scotch brands - but I’m thinking there must be a few overpriced and underperforming types of booze that sit there forever.

The bourbon nerds are usually pretty well up on whatever their particular cravings are for limited editions or allocated bottles. Occasionally a distillery will miss the market. Beam put out some limited edition. Knob Creek batches a few years ago that were maybe 12 years old and 100 proof iirc but priced around $125. They continued to sell Knob Creek single barrel which was at the time available everywhere for $45-55, labeled at 9 yo (but actually had older whiskey in the bottle according to insiders) and 120 pf. 🤷‍♂️ Those bottles sat around but I’m sure some taters bought them because they were limited. Jefferson’s puts out a bunch of shitty whiskey but people still buy that Ocean stuff and claim they can ‘taste the salt air.’ Roll 👀 I won’t buy anything with a fancy label and a ‘story.’ That’s just tater bait.

Sorry, I meant the knob creek $125 bottles sat around because you could by the $50 single barrel bottles for much less and get the same, or better, whiskey.

I can remember back when I was still drinking that my favorite liquor store always had a bottle of Cognac priced at $300 sitting on the top shelf. Does that qualify as a shelf turd?

If it sat there forever and nobody bought it, yep. Or it could be gold that nobody from a better market knew was there. Years ago, bourbon guys would go ‘dusty hunting.’ It’s all but impossible now, but you could occasionally find very good bottles of bourbon sitting on shelves in out of the way small stores. The bottles sometimes sat so long they were covered in dust. That pretty much ended in 2014 as anything good was scooped up. But, tastes change and what was bad becomes good and vice versa. It just takes patience and diligence, but unfortunately sometimes that isn’t enough to get some items that the taters have decided are hot.