Posted on 04/04/2023 2:02:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Whiskey is for drinking, not hoarding.
Regrets, I've had a few, not limited to consuming drugstore sushi, most of my high school class photos, and buying a small quantity of Ethereum (which I regret to inform you is cryptocurrency) in the spring of 2021. Not on the list: drinking every last drop of my bottle of LeNell's Red Hook Rye, which now lists for up to $100,000 on the open market. I would like to state for the record that I did not spend the equivalent of a Porsche 911 on this bottle of whiskey (maybe if I'd picked up that Ethereum back in 2015). But even at the time I bought it — roughly 2008 — that $75 or so I spent on Bottle 5/228 from Barrel 1 was a major stretch for my budget, and definitely more than I'd ever splashed out on booze before. But I wanted to support my friend who owned the coolest, most anarchic liquor shop I'd ever seen, taught me almost every single thing I knew about whiskey, and was delving into bottling the stuff herself.
To hear LeNell Camacho Santa Ana tell it, I was a regular customer at her pioneering Red Hook, Brooklyn bottle shop from pretty much the get-go in 2003, and seeing as I dorked out every time I came in, she offered me a job to which I replied, "You can't afford me." In my recollection, that is true up to the last part of the sentence, because A. I'm not prone to that kind of sass and B. what I imagine I was trying to convey is that the last time I'd worked in a retail shop where they sold something that spoke to my passions (that'd be the HMV record store in Herald Square, kitty-corner from Macy's in the mid '90s) I couldn't actually afford it because I took full and frequent advantage of the employee discount and essentially had to deposit my paycheck right back into the till. Still, she didn't seem to take great offense and I hung on her every bit of wisdom about whiskey in all its forms, as well as life, love, and the importance of not missing a chance to open the good stuff. On a random weekend in the winter of 2008, for instance, she'd busted out a couple of bottles of 1970 Lafite to enjoy alongside a potato-chip-topped squash casserole my husband and I brought over to her loft because that's just how she lives.
A British Man Is Retiring Early After Making a 4,700% Profit on His Whiskey Barrel Investment Just a few weeks prior to that classy casserole night, LeNell had noticed the vultures beginning to circle. She was several bottlings into her limited Red Hook Rye production, which she'd carefully selected from four barrels of 1984 Willett whiskey and sold exclusively at her namesake shop, when she noticed they were suddenly available via more far-flung channels. From a store newsletter at the time:
Tue, Oct 28, 2008: RED HOOK RYE is about to be featured in TIME OUT NY. However, bottles left number in the teens. I am a f'ing female dog I know, but the price is now $300. I'm just tired of morons trying to pick it up and ebay it as collectible for more than I am selling it at the shop.
Perhaps I should have taken heed and kept it corked, but in the words of John A. Shedd and the ethos of LeNell herself, "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." Whiskey is made for sipping, gulping, savoring, and sharing, and I did just that. Not willy-nilly, but to mark occasions over the next few years — a new job, a friend in mourning, being alive. The spirit is fiery, makes its presence known first up the nostrils, then down the hatch. It demands to be paid attention to, and I did every time I cracked it open.
The auction and sale price of the 850-ish bottles of Red Hook Rye has escalated in the years hence, from that initial $75 (maybe it was $100?) to $300 to $20,000 to a penny short of six figures, but it's not like I can't un-drink it. I am left with an empty bottle now and I can't say I have any regrets. Whiskey is for drinking, not hoarding. And Ethereum? Still trying to figure that out.
I found an unopened pack of Luckys non filter in my Great Grandpas fishing tackle box about 25 years ago. They must have been 40 years old. The box smelled sooo good that I had to try one. Best smoke I have ever had. It was like a fine fine Scotch whiskey. Took me two years to smoke them but Dam! Glad I didn’t throw them away.
I did some expensive drinking in the late ‘60’s when I was in the military...Some buddies and I drank Mother Goldstein’s Jewish Passover Wine...It was $3.99 a quart....
How much could you have sold them for?
Did they have a green label??? During WWII, Lucky Strike had green labels instead of red...
You’ll to pardon me, but the only whiskey I could understand with coffee would be Irish. I’ve had cognac with coffee and that went well. What I find is as a natural is coffee with dark navy rum, yum. Black coffee, dark rum.
There is only one bottle in my life that I still wish that I had saved. That was a bottle of 16 year old Waterfill and Frazier 110 proof. Found that in the early ‘80s and have not been able to find another since. Smoothest, best drink I’ve ever had.
Oops...The green was taken away during WWII and made white...
Regret is when you wake up and recall that at about 3 in the morning after the 4 of you had finished off all the beer and wine and vodka and that half bottle of Southern Comfort in the house, you were still conscious and remembered that LeNell’s Red Hook Rye you had stashed away in the gun safe.
I bought two bottles.
Gave one to a business associate that saved my life, who is a real whiskey guy.
Next I saw him, I noticed the bottle was still 3/4 full.
He explained that thePappy was very special and they only drank it on special occasions.
He loved it.
Mine is unopened
So, does it taste kinda like spotted owl or not?
No kidding! He could have sold that stupid bottled and used the proceeds to purchase a great deal of slightly lesser stuff.
I first had Blanton’s in the 80’s, although I was a scotch guy, it was pretty damn good.
Coffee and the inexpensive Thai whiskey flavored with opium.
Yeah, the definition of rot gut
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QVyutuhvSEo
It all tastes like rockgut to me.
Agreed.
Wistlepig rye 10 or 15 is fairly tasty.
And I’m also a fan of Wolfburn. I’ve got three bottles/styles. Northland is really nice and smokey. Morven and Langskip are lesser favorites.
I had a friend make a comment about “$200 worth of vomit“ one time. Yeah...Black Velvet would have worked.
I doubt I could have sold them.... this was in 1999. Ebay was a fledgling.
Sounds like she uncorked it years ago and drank it over many years. No $100K bottle involved, at all.
So cool!
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