Germantown liquor store launches own brand of bourbon
Employees from Doc’s Wine, Spirits & More in Germantown drove to a whiskey broker’s North Memphis warehouse and spent a few hours labeling 179 bottles of 10-year-old, 116-proof Tennessee bourbon.
Last Friday night, they dipped bottle necks in wax, numbered the bottles and readied a display area — an upturned whiskey barrel surrounded by whiskey cases — for a Saturday debut of the latest batch of Doc.52.
It is the store’s own brand of bourbon, part of a new strategy for staying relevant in changing times for the alcoholic beverage industry.
“Me and some other guys in the store are bourbon guys,” said Ryan Gill, general manager of the store at 6645 Poplar in Carrefour at Kirby Woods. “We figured, ‘Let’s make our store a bourbon destination.’ If we can make ourselves the go-to bourbon destination, that’s the way people will think of us.
“There are a ridiculous number of liquor stores in Memphis, and this is a way we can make ourselves stand out.”
Doc’s released the first batch of Doc.52, 162 bottles of 9-year-old, 110proof Tennessee-made bourbon, a couple months ago. It sold out in about a day and a half, and one bottle fetched
more than $500 at an auction fundraiser for Lausanne Collegiate School.
Each Doc.52 batch was drawn from a single barrel of bourbon that the Memphis whiskey broker bought from distilleries with excess production.
The broker set up shop in Memphis last year, in part to meet a demand from startup distilleries looking to establish their brand while their own whiskey is still aging. The broker bottles Doc.52, then the store’s crew does the rest.
The first batch was well received by chroniclers of the whiskey trade, including WhiskyAdvocate.com, the Bourbon Pursuit podcast, BourbonR, and BreakingBourbon.com.
“Retailer-exclusive barrel picks aren’t new, but Doc’s has big plans for its line of bourbons and whiskeys,” Whisky Advocate said.
BreakingBourbon.com said creating a store brand can be risky and inefficient, but it can create stronger relationships with customers.
“Offering a unique product just might be one way stores strengthen this relationship, but it may require more time and hard work than some stores can give,” the article said.
The focus on bourbon reflects a public fascination with American whiskey, a fast-growing liquor category that registered 8.1 percent growth and hit $3.4 billion in sales last year, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.
With Tennessee grocery stores selling wine and cutting into market share of liquor stores, Doc’s and other retailers have been looking for ways to make up for the losses.
A new state law allowed liquor stores to open on Sundays starting this spring. Come January, grocery stores will be able to sell wine on Sundays.
Gill said Doc’s has tried to carve out a niche by expanding its American whiskey section 30 to 35 percent to include more than 350 options. Its goal is to sell every American whiskey that’s distributed in West Tennessee.
Bourbon accounts for an increasing share of Doc’s sales, hitting 14 percent last year, Gill said.
Doc’s American whiskey section is large, but rival Buster’s Liquor & Wine, 61⁄2 miles west at Poplar and Highland, has a bigger footprint.
For the past two years Doc’s has held some of its limited releases off shelves and made an occasion out of a firstcome, first-served sale once a year. Customers formed a line 25 hours before the sale began and camped out overnight last December, Gill said.
Kirby Wine & Liquors in East Memphis considered creating a store-brand whiskey but opted to stick with the more traditional approach, general manager Phil Foreman said.
“We buy single barrels we pick out. We don’t claim them as our own, but we advertise it as Kirby Wines hand-selected,” Foreman said.
Kirby stocks hundreds of varieties, but like Doc’s and others, doesn’t put all its bourbons on the shelves, Foreman said.
“Some we sell on request, or we save it for a loyal customer,” Foreman said.