Acquiring rare Bourbons - Any tips?

[Porch Dweller]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

I would not buy expensive Bourbon on the secondary markets; way too many fake bottles out there.

Bingo.

Esquire had an article yesterday that touched on this very subject. It's interesting that there's a big market for empty Pappy bottles. It talks about how empties of the 20-year old have sold for $200 on E-Bay and how a guy has found serial numbers from used bottles on "new" offerings on some of the secondary market web sites.
It's worth a read if you're a bourbon fan and have seven minutes to spare or so.