That's a cool bottle and a great story. I did a little math on the $2000 bottle of Eagle Extra Rare I posted above. 2 grand probably isn't too far out of line. First off you have the packaging which probably costs a hundred or 2 just for the bottle, lid and box. Next is the angels share. (the amount of spirit that evaporates out of the barrel in 20 years) About 20% evaporates out of the barrel in the first few years. After 20 years up to 100%. Yes they have opened 20 year old barrels and they were empty. Say there's only 20% left in the barrel after 20 years. That's only10 gallons or only about 40 bottles. You have to charge a lot for the good stuff especially because there's not much of it. It is interesting watching the Buffalo Trace videos on You Tube, how much they are doing to understand the whole process so they can produce a higher quality product in a shorter time. They do a lot of R&D with barrel location, temperature, humidity, and fluctuation. The good stuff comes from particular locations in certain warehouses and if they can purposely duplicate those conditions they can produce a 8 or 10 year old quality product in 3 or 4 years. As far as the barrels themselves, they experiment with different woods for density and flavors and toast and char levels as well. It's crazy that no 2 barrels are alike. 2 barrels sitting next to each other in the rickhouse for 10 years with the same contents from the same batch will have slightly different flavors when all the variables come into play. One of the big reasons that single barrel spirits are so popular now days.
Sorry to ramble on. I find the whole industry quite fascinating. Some of these distilleries have been around for 200+ years and have a rich history to be told.
