Jim Beam's big bottles carry the biggest crowd premiums

That is the whole knot to untangle with Jim Beam this week. The brand's bottles all sit over their flavour-crowd, the ten bourbons the model rates nearest each on taste. But the crowd is measured the same way whatever size the bottle is, so a big handle of Beam will always read dear against whiskeys sold in ordinary 700ml bottles. You are not paying triple for the same whiskey. You are paying for far more of it. The honest comparison is between bottles of similar size, and once you line those up the picture is calmer and more useful. The brand's middle price lands near $73.

Start with the bottle that tells you the least flattering truth and the most honest one at the same time: the 1.75L White Label at $135. White Label is the workhorse. Light and grain-forward, sweet corn and caramel, a touch of light oak, nothing complicated and nothing pretending to be. Against a $44 crowd the big bottle looks more than three times over, but that number is mostly the extra litre of whiskey in your hand. What it does tell you is the rate: a 1.75L handle is only good value if you drink enough White Label to justify laying out $135 at once. If you do, the per-drink cost is fine. If you do not, you are tying up money in a bottle that will sit half-full for a year.