"A weird quirk of spirits history, but especially bourbon history, is that for most of its existence, it merely existed to be drunk," writes Aaron Goldfarb. But for some people, liquor is so much more. We're talking about the collectors, the completists, the people who haunt estate sales and flea markets, who travel thousands of miles, who pay massive sums to possess rare bottles distilled during their birth year, the teetotalers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on exquisite liquors they'll never taste. Goldfarb focuses on these alcohol obsessives in his book, Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits.
A bartender at Eleven Madison Park pours various Van Winkle bourbons. Photo by Kowarski/Flickr.
He pinpoints 2010 as the moment the mania for vintage spirits took off. Bottles of Pappy Van Winkle began selling for outrageous prices as collectors sought out older vintages. "Unlike wine or beer, we don't exactly say that spirits age. We call them liquid time capsules because of their proof and the way they're made. Once they're bottled and someone opens them, you're literally tasting what a person would have tasted when it was bottled," Goldfarb says.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, bourbon fell out of favor and was difficult to sell so distilleries started churning out gimmicky decanters to draw attention to their product. Many of those have become collectibles, like this chess set from Old Crow.
Aaron Goldfarb explores why trends of modern collectors want to stock their liquor cabinets with vintage bottles. Photo by Cory Smith.
"Prohibition radically changes both spirit production and collecting," Goldfarb says. During that era, several distilleries received special licenses to continue producing bourbon and rye, which they sold as "medicinal whisky." Prohibition also changed what was produced in America. Rye whisky dried up and the country became bourbon territory.
Goldfarb names the defunct Stitzel-Weller Distillery as the "King of Kings" among bourbons. Operated by Julian Van Winkle Sr., it opened on Kentucky Derby Day in 1935 and survived until 1992. While neophytes may look down on Wild Turkey, bottles from the 1980s are highly coveted.
"Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits" follows collectors on the hunt for liquid time capsules. Photo courtesy of Abrams.