From the front page · Thread · The whole shelf · 2026-10-01

One distillery holds the five fairest single malts on the shelf

1/The five single malts sitting closest to fair value all carry one name: Glen Moray. The widest premium belongs to a New Zealand pour. All 133 malts priced live at Dan Murphy's this Thursday, the full shelf. 51 of 133 shifted price or zone since last look.

2/How I read it: each price weighed against the fair value its own ten-seat jury hands it, as a percent. Single malt is a style, not a place — this spans Scotland, Japan, India, England, NZ. Nothing dips under its mean, so the near end is "least over", never a discount.

3/The least-over end, all live. Glen Moray Classic 1L at $88, barely 0.72% past its jury. The Classic 700mL at $71, 0.92%. Then three more Glen Morays at $72 each, around 0.95%: the Classic Port Cask, the Peated, the Sherry Cask. One distillery, the whole fair-value front row.

4/The words behind the whole shelf, pooled from its own reviews, style-wide: peat and smoke, sherry, vanilla, a sweet note, a thread of chocolate. That is the single malt character talking across five countries at once. It describes the shelf, not any one bottle in it.

5/The dear end. Dunedin Double Cask, a New Zealand malt, at $123 — 68.52% over its own mean, the widest gap here and a live price. Amrut Fusion (India) at $114, 44.21%. Cotswolds (England) at $115, 39.54%. A genuine spread, not an artefact.

6/The tidy read: single malt has a fair-value floor stamped Glen Moray and a long premium tail that runs through four other countries. 133 bottles, every one over its own number. If the front row is the honest buy tonight, the $71 Classic 700mL or the $72 Sherry Cask?

Sources

Coverage: 133 of 133 members priced live in the 2026-10-01 harvest (100%) — grounding.coverage (n_observed/n_members).
Price band $53.99–$989.99, median $125.00; scope-average CE 360° mean ≈ $156.51 — grounding.price_band, grounding.ce_360_mean_avg.
Shelf character words (style-level, parent-relative, pooled over 111 reviews): peat, smoke, sherry, vanilla, sweet, chocolate — grounding.words (noise tokens "notes", "whisky", "hint", "black" dropped). No per-bottle tasting notes are asserted; the words describe the shelf, not any one bottle.
Cool-down (decision 15): Single Malt (whisky_style): led 2026-09-10-whole-shelf-single-malt.md 21 day(s) earlier — CHANGED, may lead again; the piece must say what changed: 51 of 133 bottles changed price or 360° zone (38%; the bar is 10%) (2026-09-10.r to 2026-10-01.1)

End	Item	Price	Gap %	Priced
Hot 1	Glen Moray Classic Single Malt Scotch Whisky 1L	$88	+0.72%	observed 2026-10-01
Hot 2	Glen Moray Classic Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$71	+0.92%	observed 2026-10-01
Hot 3	Glen Moray Classic Port Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$72	+0.95%	observed 2026-10-01
(hot)	Glen Moray Peated Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$72	+0.95%	observed 2026-10-01
(hot)	Glen Moray Sherry Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky 700mL	$72	+0.95%	observed 2026-10-01
Cold 1	Dunedin Double Cask Single Malt New Zealand Whisky 500mL	$123	+68.52%	observed 2026-10-01
Cold 2	Amrut Fusion Indian Whisky 700mL	$114	+44.21%	observed 2026-10-01
Cold 3	Cotswolds Single Malt Whisky 700mL	$115	+39.54%	observed 2026-10-01
(cold)	IronHouse Distillery Tasman Whisky - Port Cask - Tasmanian Single Malt	$230	+38.19%	observed 2026-10-01
(cold)	Yamazaki 12 Year Old Single Malt Japanese Whisky 700mL	$376	+31.87%	observed 2026-10-01

Omissions

None recorded.

Notes for reviewer

Scope is a style, not a region: the shelf spans Scotch, Japanese, Indian, English and New Zealand malts. The hook leans on this deliberately — the fair-value front row is one Scottish distillery (Glen Moray, five expressions), while the premium tail is spread across the other countries. No pipeline quirk here; these are genuine members of the single malt style.
Cool-down is live: this scope led a merged thread 21 days back, so the change count (51 of 133, 38%, bar is 10%) is stated in post 1 as a plain count, not a trend or cause.
Gap basis is percentage per the pack; every dollar and gap % in the post appears in the Sources table or bullets.

Format note

Whole Shelf, scope Single Malt (whisky_style), vintage 2026-10-01.1, pack whisky_style-single-malt-aggregate.json. Gap basis PERCENTAGE; ce_gap_pct=(price−CE 360° mean)/price×100, each bottle's premium over its own CE 360° consensus; 'hot'=smallest premium (least over fair value), 'cold'=largest. No bottle sits below its own mean, so 'hot' is not a bargain. 'Hot'/'cold' are value labels only, never velocity or trend. Coverage 133 of 133 priced live in the 2026-10-01 harvest (100%). Sources holds the stored top/bottom notable-mover cut, not the full ranked shelf.

Frontmatter as merged

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source file: drafts/2026-10-01-whole-shelf-single-malt.md