spirits collecting | The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

is the practice of systematically seeking out and acquiring bottles of liquor as a hobby. Although some spirits collectors consume their acquisitions, as is overwhelmingly the case in the much larger field of wine collecting, many objectify their bottles. Traditionally collectors gravitated toward brown spirits (whisky, cognac, and rum), with notable exceptions such as miniatures and Chartreuse, but within the last twenty years collecting habits have diversified greatly to encompass virtually all types and brands of spirits. Currently the field of spirits collecting is the largest and most robust that it has ever been, mirroring the rapidly expanding contemporary spirits market. At present, the most sought-after and expensive bottles in spirits collecting are pre-phylloxera cognac (roughly, from before 1860), pre-ban absinthe (before 1914), pre-Prohibition bourbon and rye (before 1920), pre-revolutionary Cuban rum (before 1959), and post–World War II whisky from mothballed scotch malt distilleries, Japan, and Kentucky.

Spirits collecting in its earliest form coincided with the appearance of branded individual bottles and large-scale advertising campaigns, such as those of Martini & Rossi and Johnnie Walker, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See Martini & Rossi, Johnnie Walker. But this hobby was not widespread until after the social and political unrest of the two world wars and Prohibition. Primary large-scale popular collecting after World War II was initially of miniature bottles, produced in vast quantities by many brands for marketing and promotional purposes, particularly relating to travel (trains, ships, buses, airplanes, and hotel minibars). Having been successfully indoctrinated, collectors amassed these same brands in full-sized bottles in the 1950s and 1960s. This type of collecting was archaeological and encyclopedic in nature, with the goal of gathering as many examples as possible of a type (blended scotch) or a brand of spirit (Johnnie Walker).

Like art collectors, spirits collectors’ first acquisitions are often nationalistic or patriotic: the Scots and scotch; Americans and American whisky; the French and French bistro drinks such as cognac, vermouths, and various herbal spirits including absinthe, pastis, and Chartreuse; the Italians and grappas or Italian caffè drinks such as brandy, vermouth, amari, and liqueurs. Scotch whisky was collected broadly by type (for example, blends), area (Highland), or vertically by brand (Lagavulin) and cognac broadly across brands and vertically by brand (Hennessy ultimately became the most avidly collected). See Hennessy. Similarly, collectors then developed emulative international tastes—the American, French, Italians, and Japanese collecting scotch whisky, for example. Bill Pigati, whose family has owned Del Rio, a famous restaurant near Chicago, since the 1920s was an early example of a collector in this classical vein, although he was slightly ahead of his time; he bought blended scotch whisky in the 1940s and early 1950s, which was very popular during the period (his collection was acquired by the Whisky Exchange and has now largely been resold). Beginning in 1960, Valentino Zagatti began to form what would become a three-thousand-bottle collection of Scotch malts (he wrote two books on the subject, and his collection is now housed in Sassenheim, the Netherlands). Stephen Remsberg, now of New Orleans, was inspired to begin his twelve-thousand-bottle collection of rums of the world in 1973 by his regular patronage of the Chicago Trader Vic’s and Don the Beachhcomber’s.

Other factors, such as historic events, sometimes also define collecting subgroups. Such academic collecting signals that the field has reached a certain maturity and offers brands an opportunity to capitalize on the demand. For example, in an effort to liquidate a glut of Kentucky bourbon during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Jim Beam presented it in ceramic decanters of every imaginable shape, size, and theme. Through creative lighthearted marketing, they successfully sold a lot of their product, rejuvenated the brand, and created a collector’s market for novel and occasional decanters as sets that is still active thirty-five years after they launched the last examples. See Jim Beam. Bell’s followed suit and ultimately became more famous and collected with their eponymous packaging for blended scotch whisky.

Today, after several generations of brand reinforcement, the most popular category of collecting is whisky, prompted by the myriad new bottlings from scotch, Kentucky bourbon, and Japanese brands with different barrel finishes, age statements, and barrel strengths (often sold exclusively through duty-free shops). Many collectors of this material view it as an investment, and this speculation has proven accurate. In fact, organized investment instruments for whisky have emerged in the form of the Platinum Whisky Investment Fund in Hong Kong, WhiskyInvestDirect in London, and World Whisky Index in the Netherlands. But the growing large-scale appetite for vintage bottlings in the early twenty-first century signals that buying “dusties” is not merely a resurgent trend but still core to the canon of spirits collecting and appealing to a new generation of collectors.