Is your favorite whiskey harder to find these days?

Drinks Discussions Other Alcoholic and Non-alcoholic Drinks
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From Eater, a very likely explanation. This will help me a lot when trying to explain to customers why we don’t have Blanton’s or buffalo trace on our shelves any more. http://www.eater.com/drinks/2015/12/29/10659946/extinct-whiskies-2015

The biggest reason that so many whiskeys have up and disappeared recently is a continued shift towards No Age Statement (NAS) bottles. This is, in almost all cases and despite what brands like to tell consumers, due to supply issues. There’s simply not enough aged stock on hand to produce that 8-year-old bourbon or 12-year-old Scotch today while ensuring there’s some left for tomorrow. Voila, age statements get removed, and longtime favorite whiskeys are gone forever.

Another example of allocation essentially annexing whiskey from the store shelf is Weller 12. Famously made from the same juice which supplies the Van Winkle line, it’s allocated to the point of year-round unavailability. “Almost everything interesting in bourbon is allocated and I’m lucky to get more than one bottle per year,” said Boudreau. “This includes almost everything by Buffalo Trace [which produces Van Winkle and Weller].”

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Presented in the FWIW mode . . . .

This is far from the first time this has happened. Every few years, either the age statement takes a hit, or disappears entirely.

For example, does anyone remember when (e.g.) Johnnie Walker Red, Dewar’s, Cutty Sark, J&B, Famous Grouse, Teacher’s, and ALL the major brands of Blended Scotch carried age statements? Up until the mid-1970s, all of them were 8 years old, while Johnnie Walker Black was 12 years old, and all the other brands also offered 12-year old versions. The 12-year old age statement remains – for the most part – but the 8-year old statements have all disappeared on the major brands . . . .