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One Man Can Change the World...Sort Of

I like malt liquor.
I won't go to the extent of saying that my taste for malt liquor is a barometer of either my pride or moral turpitude, but that, like other matters of taste, it is simply a fact to be filed under "Zen's Idiosyncracies".
I particularly care for Haffenreffer's Private Stock (read selected reviews of it here). I could, prior to Friday September 13th, purchase three quarters of a gallon of this lovely swill for just under five dollars at my local liquor store. I've turned at least one other person on to it, and quite possibly a few others. It's good stuff, and can be had for a good price. Or could.
Apparently, my local liquor client discovered that this underappreciated beast was flying off of the shelves (not in too great quantities, but more than, say, one six pack per season), and the price went up by twenty percent!!!! I stood aghast, noticing the change in price (the price was appealing to me in particular, being none too much rich), and now thinking hard about something that marketing experts would call a low-involvement repeat purchase situation.
I ended up choosing another swill for the evening (and subsequent ones), but, holding out false hope, I decided to scan the price list located near the register at the front of the store, to see whether or not the change in price had really gone into effect, or whether some clerk was merely having fun at my (and only my) expense.
The price hike, alas, was genuine.
Going home with my second choice, I pondered what exactly this price hike reflected. Did I, in my recent and hot/excited custom of purchasing my now favorite (and the only green bottled) malt liquor, cause the liquor store owners to raise the price, noticing that they were ordering a case or two per month rather than per year, hoping that the recent pickup in product movement would result in at least 20 percent more profit? Or did the Haffenreffer company decide to raise its prices across the board? Vanity, and a desire to really make a difference in this world, convinces me that the former is actually the case. Hooray for me. I finally DID make a difference.
I can only hope, that for my liquor client's sake, that the tried and true economic principle of diminishing returns does not come to bite them too severely on the behind.