John Heider | hometownlife.com
There aren’t many bourbons that have managed to attract more hype than the bottles that comprise the Pappy Van Winkle line. That hallowed elixir can fetch some impressive prices on the secondary market, and one highly sought-after predecessor from the 1980s has set a new record for the most expensive American whiskey ever sold after hitting the auction block.
America’s Bourbon Boom has seemingly come to an end close to two decades after the spirit experienced a massive resurgence toward the end of the 2010s.
Plenty of connoisseurs are hoping there’s a silver lining in the form of a price drop after the cost of particularly coveted bottles skyrocketed due to an unprecedented spike in demand, and there aren’t many that the so-called “taters” who mastered the art of the hunt targeted more than Pappy Van Winkle.
The Van Winkle family is considered whiskey royalty thanks to a lineage that can be traced back to Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle Sr., who kicked off his career as a salesman for W.L. Weller & Sons in Kentucky at the end of the 19th century before eventually ascending to his role as a co-owner.
He introduced the Old Van Winkle brand that was resurrected by his son (and namesake) in 1970s, and his grandson, Julian Van Winkle III, eventually ushered in a new era with the increasingly mature bottlings that led to the creation of the “Pappy Van Winkle” line.
The brand is currently overseen by the folks at Buffalo Trace, and the 15, 20, and 23-year-old variations of Pappy Van Winkle are some of the most vaunted whiskeys on the planet. It’s virtually impossible to find them at MSRP, and you’ll almost certainly need to fork over a four-figure sum if you manage to track them down in the wild.
However, those prices are a bargain compared to what a bottle that was produced close to 45 years ago recently sold for.
A bottle of 20-year-old Old Rip Van Winkle from 1982 became the most expensive American whiskey ever sold after being auctioned off for over $160,000
The original bottles of Pappy Van Winkle were made and aged at the famed Stitzel-Weller distillery, which ceased operations in 1992. Bottles containing the “juice” from that era are both incredibly prized and increasingly rare, and some people will pay a very pretty penny to get their hands on one when given the opportunity.
One recently arose when Sotheby’s organized an auction dubbed “The Great American Whiskey Collection,” which featured a 20-year-old bottle of what was technically labeled as “Old Rip Van Winkle” when it was packaged back in 1982 (I know some members of the “Um Actually” Crowd were ready to pounce after reading the headline).
It was one of just 60 bottles that comprised a lot from a private barrel reserved for Sam’s Wines & Spirits in Chicago, which sold the cask-strength bourbon that clocked in at 133.4 proof for $100 at the time.
That was a pretty steep price to pay back then, but it would have ended up being a pretty good investment when you consider the bottle became the most expensive American whiskey ever sold after going for $162,500 (surpassing another Old Rip Van Winkle bottle from 2007 that went for $125,000 last year).
If you’re curious, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the bottle that holds the record for the most expensive whiskey of all time: a Macallan Valerio Adami 60 Year Old that sold for $2,726,281 in 2023.