Police believe that whoever stole 65 cases of rare, 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle bourbon from a Kentucky distillery over the last two months may have some connection to the facility.
Once dubbed "the bourbon so popular even billionaires can't find it" by the Wall Street Journal, Pappy Van Winkle has amassed something of a cult following over the years.
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"This is the mac daddy," Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton told the Courier-Journal.
Known for its rarity and sought-after short supply, aged Pappy Van Winkle bourbon is kept in a secure area at Buffalo Trace Distillery's Frankfort, Ky., facility.
So when Buffalo Trace supervisors noticed that 65 cases of the precious bourbon, worth an estimated $26,000, went missing, they knew it had to be an inside job.
"It appears that [the whiskey] was taken off the back of the pallets in the back of the area where they were being stored," Melton said, adding that the heist was carried out one case at a time over a two-month period.
A bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon can retail for anywhere between $130 and $400 a bottle, according to the Courier-Journal.
Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, made with a combination of corn, wheat, and barley instead of corn, rye, and barley, earned a silver medal at the 2013 International Wine & Spirits Competition.
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