A whiskey that was chosen by a liquor store is NOT necessarily better than the bottle without their name on it…
Some liquor stores hand pick selections of whiskey and put their store names on the bottle. Larger retailers will do this and those bottles tend to sell well to their loyal customers. These stores may receive samples from a distillery to chose from. Their ability to determine which of those samples is “best” is what would make these choices worthwhile.
First of all, DO NOT assume that the liquor stores choice is better. And MOST CERTAINLY do not pay more for their choice. Oftentimes, the whiskey buyer at that store may have similar tastes to your own, but you can only come to trust that by buying their choices and comparing those to the standard bottling. If the standard brand on the shelf is a small batch bottling and the store pick is a single barrel, that may be interesting. Go to the store when they are offering tastings. Ask the store manager for a taste before you buy. A “store pick” whiskey should have samples available for you. Whiskey is not inexpensive enough to just go on faith that the liquor store’s tastes are similar enough to your own.
There are definitely “honey” barrels out there and a master distiller, with his/her highly tuned senses, can pick them out. Sometimes a store will have connections and access to a distiller’s special barrels. Most of the time, it is just a standard bottle with the liquor store’s logo tacked on. I would trust the master distiller at a distillery to make a choice, not necessarily a liquor store owner. Everyone’s tastes are different after all.