How Does Costco Sell 18-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch for $38?

he geekiest factions of the online whiskey community can be particularly nasty, with insiders railing on “taters” (uninformed collectors) and lambasting the limited-edition releases they pursue. That makes it all the more surprising that, over the past year, there’s been a groundswell of support among geeks for the Kirkland Signature collection. These Costco house whiskies have likewise landed solid scores on Whisky Advocate and Wine Enthusiast of late; they even nabbed a top prize at the New York World Wine & Spirits Competition. They’re cheap, too—whether it be a 1.75 liter of Canadian whisky for $20 or an 18 Year Old Sherry Cask Finish Highlands Scotch for $38.

It’s this downright impossible price that has the online geeks playing a guessing game as to not only where, exactly, these whiskies are coming from, but how Costco gets the prices—specifically on age-statement whiskies—so low.

“It’s called undercutting their own undercutting,” the vice president of sales for a major spirits company told me [he didn’t wish to be identified]. What he means is, if Costco’s bottles of Jim Beam and Jack Daniel’s are already at cut-rate prices, the wholesale giant’s comparable house brands are intentionally sold for even cheaper than that. (And, that same VP claims, intentionally designed to look like well-known bottles from major brands.)

Likewise, many whiskey bloggers have noticed that Costco seems to obscure what they actually offer, with no master list available anywhere online. Most of their lower-end bottlings come in the popular 1.75 liter “handle,” like Kirkland Signature Blended Scotch Whisky ($18) and Kirkland Signature Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskey “Premium Small Batch” ($30). In the past few years they’ve also offered a rotating, limited selection of premium Scotch, like a blended 24-year-old for $70 and a Speyside 25-year-old for just $89.