These Whisky Lovers Take Their Collecting to Another Level

Everyone remembers the first bottle or sip of whisky that sparked their passion. And, if you’re like most whisky lovers, that passion blossomed and burgeoned. It can be seen as a snowball effect or a rabbit hole, but the stronghold that whisky collecting exerts is undeniable. Whether that’s hunting for a beloved bottle you haven’t seen in the wild for years or searching tirelessly for the last piece needed to complete a set, there’s a feeling of elation when you tuck a new bottle into its home alongside the rest of your prized finds.

As your collection overflows from a shelf or cabinet to occupy closets, custom-built shelves, basement bars, or entire rooms (all due credit to understanding spouses and partners for these allowances), you may hit a point where you wonder if you’ll be able to enjoy it all in one lifetime. Regardless of how immense your collection becomes, there will always be bottles you obsess over and pursue. That’s just the nature of the beast.

For many, what grows as quickly as your bottle count is the number of like-minded friends from the collector community. People you enjoy cracking bottles with, people for whom you find yourself pouring from a bottle you perhaps wouldn’t open otherwise. The feeling of sharing a special bottle with friends is why many people collect in the first place. The collectors here all fit that bill.

ROB BEAHN, 44, Cleveland, Ohio: Vintage Treasures

Crown Royal Cask No. 16 is what got Beahn started on his whisky journey back in 2012. After tasting a neat sample, Beahn realized he could venture north from his Ohio home to Ontario, and started squirreling away bottles. Now, more than 2,500 bottles line the shelves of Catcher & Rye, his 700 square-foot baseball-themed basement speakeasy.

(Tug on the middle bat on a rack to enter the impressive space.) The lion’s share of his collection is “vintage, which I define as bottled pre-2000,” Beahn says. His favorites include a 1990 Old Ezra 12 year old 101—“an incredible caramel bomb,” a 2017 Al Young Four Roses, and “anything pre-fire Heaven Hill. Whenever I see those, I buy them; the more obscure the better.”

The majority of his bottles are American whiskey, though he has several hundred bottles of Canadian and Irish, as well as rums. He figures somewhere around 15% of his bottles are open, noting that, especially with vintage whiskey, “I don’t want to manage fill levels, so once it’s open I drink through it.” Beahn’s not precious about what to crack. “If there’s an occasion or a time or group that’s right, nothing’s off limits,” he says.

Beahn has figured out how to turn his passion into his profession. He recently left a gig in corporate sales to launch The Whiskey Coach, where he travels the country hosting private and corporate tasting events. As part of that, he’s constantly sampling new things to share. “The kids go to bed, and I go into the basement, and it takes me 25 minutes to pick something,” he laughs. “There are too many options now.”

ADAM HERZ, 52, Los Angeles: Rare, Rarer, Rarest

“It takes a second for my database to open,” writer and producer Adam Herz says when asked about his collection’s total bottle count. A few keyboard taps are audible over the phone, then the answer comes: 1,200, with more than 200 open. “Forty percent of that is scotch single malts,” Herz says, followed by a heap of American whiskey, and small contingents of Irish, armagnac, rum, and cognac, too. “My great-grandfather was a saloonkeeper before Prohibition,” Herz says, “During Prohibition, he was a bootlegger of medicinal pints in Brooklyn.” His focus for a while was on medicinal pints, and Herz amassed more than 200. He later traded the bulk of those pints for bottles he could bring to parties.

While there are a few bottles Herz would hesitate to open, he largely enjoys drinking the rest with “a great group of friends over the last two decades.” For his 50th birthday, Herz cracked a Black Bowmore, a Springbank 12 year old 100 proof “Double Dark,” and a Macallan 25 year old from 1972, Herz’s birth year. His scotch journey began with a Lagavulin 16 about 20 years ago.

Herz’s rarer bottles will make any serious collector drool: “There’s a Bowmore Bouquet, I have a Baker’s Pure Rye from 1847, the Guinness World Record oldest whiskey in the world, some beautiful condition Old Taylor, Old Charter, Old Quaker, Old Overholt, Old Log Cabin, which is what [Al] Capone was smuggling. I’m deep in Very Old Fitzgerald and its variations, but also passionate about Rathskeller, Corti Brothers, and Black Maple Hill.”

TZVI WIESEL, 30, New York: Whisky Trader

Years ago, Tzvi Wiesel’s stint as a server at a whisky tasting event meant he sampled some distinctive offerings. “Glenmorangie Signet made me realize not all whisky is equal,” says Wiesel. Hunting for that very bottle, Wiesel would often drive from his New York City home to New Jersey for better prices. “Thus, whiskey arbitrage was born,” he laughs. “I’d go pick up bottles for others, and make a small markup as a mule so I could get more bottles.” By 2015, he’d spent enough with Total Wine to qualify for a Van Winkle Lot B at $80. “That was the basis of my collection; this has a longer appreciating value. What other bottles retail at $80 that trade at multiples of this?” Through online whiskey communities—“This is when there were 300 people in a Facebook group, not 30,000”—Wiesel learned what was coveted and went after it, including Booker’s rye, Russell’s Reserve 1998, hand-painted Hibikis; making shorter flips to afford bigger bottles he wanted to sit on.

Wiesel is now the co-founder and CEO of Baxus, a secure marketplace for trading and collecting fine and rare spirits. His personal collection is around 700 sealed bottles, including some pre-Prohibition, like Golden Wedding and early Four Roses. His favorite bottle may be a 1958 Old Grand-Dad that belonged to his grandfather. “My grandmother gave it to me, along with a Stoli vodka bottle from the USSR,” he says. “You can’t re-create these.” Wiesel keeps 200 open bottles to share, noting that if friends really like something, “I tell them to take it home. I have plenty more.”

MASON WALKER, 43, Scottsdale, Arizona: It Started With a Dusty

After walking into an Oregon liquor store in 2012, Mason Walker, then on the hunt for fancy liquor to pour to impress doctors associated with his then-healthcare company, lucked out. “There was a 16 year old A.H. Hirsch in a humidor case, covered with dust,” Walker recalls. “The tag said $900, but I wasn’t sure, so the salesperson sold it to me for $600. It was insanely tasty.” Two weeks before, he’d been given a pour of Rittenhouse 21 year old, and “fireworks went off in my mouth.” Ever since, Walker’s been obsessed with American whiskey.

Now Walker’s the founder and CEO of Bourbon Lore, an experiential company and community of whiskey enthusiasts, and has a 2,000-bottle collection of American whiskeys, ranging from the late 1800s through the early 2000s. His aim is to open and share “some or all bottles” as part of Bourbon Lore experiences, adding that one-third are currently open, to create similar spark moments for others. When Walker’s father— who introduced him to whiskey via a pour of Jack Daniel’s—passed away, Walker honored him by cracking open a 1908 Old Overholt from Andrew Mellon’s collection.

To memorialize his revered bottles, Walker and business partner Clay Risen worked to create “Bourbon Lore: Legends of American Whiskey,” a 303-page, nearly 4-pound tome with stunning shots of the likes of Black Maple Hill 23 year old, Very Old St. Nick, and an Old Rip Van Winkle 10 year squat bottle “that was from an American Legion post from Christmas of 1988,” reminding Walker of his grandfather. “It doesn’t get more Americana than that,” he says, adding, “This book is a tribute to these incredible chapters in American whiskey, and the players who did extraordinary things for our nation’s spirit.”