The Game of Thrones Whiskies Drop Saturday

And kitsch factor aside, they’re no joke.

It’s a good news, bad news scenario for me. On the plus side, the entire Game of Thrones whisky set drops Saturday at the BCLDB. The bad news? I spent a good chunk of my recent vacation driving around Southern California snagging bottles from the collection, confident that it would be ages (if ever) before they’d be released here. And, finally, the silver lining—they’re godawful pricey up here. (I bought the tough-to-find Oban Bay Reserve Night’s Watch for USD$50 two weeks ago at BevMo and it’s $135 here; I also bought House Stark Dalwhinnie for USD$35 versus $110.)So if you’re not a Game of Thrones nerd, why should you care? Because, for once, this is a collaboration that channels some serious quality thanks in part to HBO partnering with Diageo, owner of probably the most diverse and impressive range of whiskies in the world. And even better, there’s a logical sense at play here: GoT has always channeled a Celtic vibe and the geographical location of the various distilleries shoehorns nicely with the geographical location of the houses in the series.Only five BC Liquor Stores will be carrying the entire line (you can see the availability here), but there’ll be stray bottles in a number of stores. If you’re only buying a bottle or two, you should note that the most difficult to find (in other markets) so far are the House Greyjoy made by Talisker, the Oban Night’s Watch and the Baratheon Royal Lochnagar. So if you’re in a mood to speculate, those would be your best bets. And as to whether it’s worth paying $145 for a 9 Year Old Lagavulin (versus $135 for the regular 16-year-old version)? Well, we’ll leave it up to you. But if you truly believe winter is coming, you’ll know what to do.