Mondays at Frankfort Avenue Liquors is a Great Way to try New Bourbon — On a Budget
Old Grand-Dad circa 2003. Photo by Kevin Gibson
Having become immersed in the bourbon industry in recent years – it’s Kentucky and I write about beer and local culture, so really, it was inevitable – I find myself intrigued by the “chase” some bourbon enthusiasts live for. They chase Blanton’s, Blood Oath, anything from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, and pretty much anything that’s difficult to obtain.
While I am not a chaser or a collector, what I do enjoy as a writer of bourbon news and part-time salesman of bourbon is to try new things without committing to buying an expensive bottle. To that end, there seems to be a rise in local concepts that serve both purposes: a combination of bar and retailer.
This isn’t new. I work part-time at Taste Fine Wines & Bourbons, which has been doing business in NuLu for more than 15 years, serving pours and flights while also selling bottles. Justin’s House of Bourbon sells bottles and has a tasting bar, Evergreen Liquors offers pours at many of its locations, and Neat, which specializes in vintage whiskey, opened recently in the Highlands and has a bottle shop. The upside at such places is you can get a pour of something before you commit to buying a bottle, on site.
Another recent player in this arena is Frankfort Avenue Liquors & Wine (or just FAL), located at 2115 Frankfort Ave. You’ll find 500-plus bottles of bourbon plus cocktails, and many of those bottles are those hard-to-find bottles many collectors pay up for. And while many of the pours are pricey, there’s a hidden little bonus at FAL – featured bourbons get discounted every Monday, all day long.
Bartender Jesse Watts pulls multiple bottles off the bar back every Monday when he opens the bar/shop and discounts them – simple as that. But part of what keeps people coming back is that he often will have a theme. At one of the first FAL Mondays I recall, he had multiple bottles of New Riff products, mostly single barrel store picks. If I recall correctly, they were four or five bucks apiece.
More recently, it was multiple bottles of Old Grand-Dad from 2003. The price per one-ounce pour was six bucks. A few weeks back, I got my first taste of Weller Full Proof – a store pick, no less – for $12. Stagg Jr.? Same price on a recent Monday. Elijah Craig Barrel Strength. Booker’s.
Check it out at 2115 Frankfort Ave. Courtesy of Frankfort Avenue Liquors & Wine
You get the picture – this is stuff I probably wouldn’t get to try otherwise. I’m not going to drive all over creation looking for a Weller Full Proof at retail price, and I’m certainly not going to pay secondary prices in the hundreds. I’m just not that into bourbon. I’m a beer guy at heart, so if I get a bottle of the hard-to-get stuff, it will mean I lucked into it.
But Mondays at Frankfort Avenue Liquors is a treat that I look forward to when I’m able to make it.
Watts told me he tries to vary his picks from week to week, and he tries to pull bottles he has more than one of so that the sale price doesn’t thin out the stock. And he doesn’t plan ahead, either; rather, he just wings it.
“There's no rhyme or reason,” Watts says. “I don't even think about it ’til I get here.”
He posts his picks in the Louisville Bourbon Club group on Facebook. More and more customers are taking notice and showing up to see what he’s plucked from the shelves on any given Monday.
“I've got people who come out on a Monday night,” he says, emphasizing that it’s not typically a night for going out for a drink, “so I feel like I’ve got to reward them. ‘Thank you, here's what I’ve got today.’”
Next time, it might be Eagle Rare or Henry McKenna, or maybe even a store pick of their own (the recent Wilderness Trail Rye FAL store pick is absolutely outstanding). Whatever the case, it will be a pleasant surprise for bourbon lovers, and at a nice price.
See you on Monday.
