1/The engine's ninth-closest pair in the whole set: Blanton's Single Barrel Special Reserve, a Kentucky bourbon at $133, and Lark's Chinotto Citrus Cask, a Tasmanian single malt at $218. Two shelves that never meet.

2/It calls them near-neighbours on flavour make-up alone. Kentucky char set beside a citrus-cask Tassie malt, grouped by the model's arithmetic on the profile, not by anyone pouring the two together.

3/The value read points at the Tasmanian. Lark's Chinotto sits under the floor of its own peer group and at the bottom of its own recent range, both signals cheap and neither leaning on the other. $218 the bottle.

4/Blanton's does not line up the same way. Against comparable bourbons it sits over the ceiling, dear for what it is, even while its own recent tickets run low. Mixed signals, so it is not the value call here.