Bottle Chasers: Why We Collect Booze We Never Drink | Ep. 127

Why do we spend hundreds, or even thousands, on bottles we might never open? In this episode, we dive deep into the psychology of liquor collecting, hype culture, FOMO, and the way booze becomes a status symbol. Whether you're building a bunker of bourbon or flexing limited-edition tequila, there's more to it than just what's in the bottle.

From the thrill of the hunt to the trap of identity signaling, Matt, Jason, and Drew break down why collecting bottles is more emotional than logical…and why that’s exactly the point.


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Transcript

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But it, it's a token that represents that card, so you don't damage the card. We should do that with bourbon. We should like put out the Russell's 13, and be like we're gonna drink this old crow. But just know. it. represents the Russell's 13. Welcome back to arsenic culture. I am Matt, I'm still drinking. I'm Jason. We have a great fan base. We have many tens of people that watch this show. um, one of my, dog really enjoys us. Yeah. Oh, Loki. he's, uh, He's actually been pushing us to do a, Patreon. got a hair right here? There you go. that's, uh, we're not gonna talk about where that came from. but One of our biggest fans, um, has actually, uh, it is reached out to us and wants us to kind of change the format up a little bit. And in order to, uh, make this fan happy, uh, which is my mom, uh, she said we need to cuss less so. um, The algorithm probably agrees with her. So, I mean, there's, there's other incentive to do that. But uh. yeah, my poor mom, she's like, Matthew, I love all of your shows, but do you have to say so many bad words? And I was like, I mean, mom, we just, we, we are who we are. But, uh, she doesn't seem that side of me. because though she raised me. So I love you, mom and uh, okay. So, but, um, I got a question for you guys. We, we, We talk a lot about, uh. Bourbon. We talk a lot about spirits. Um, there is this mentality in really every part of that industry, like no matter if you're talking about rum, you're talking about beer, you're talking about, uh, bourbon, you're talking about wine of collecting. Okay? And this is, is a normal thing, but people buy, they collect. and Then they don't do anything with it. They don't drink it. They don't sell it. They put it away and it just stays there unopened until they die. Obviously, you know, you drink some stuff, but what is up with that? I think it's like anything else. You know, I, I was actually traveling for work a little bit recently in Indiana, around the Evansville area. My son Joey's Pokemon cars, like collect them. He doesn't play the game necessarily, but I went into a couple card shops and I noticed. There's cars in there. Have you looked at values of like Pokemon and basketball and baseball cards lately? You mean just the expensive ones? Well, yeah.$5 ones.'cause Do you know how much a pack of cards is now? Like probably five bucks. so that's, that's Pokemon's about five bucks for retail. But if you look at like basketball and baseball, there's some of those packs that are over a hundred dollars retail. for a pack. And You're talking about? I don't, I don't know what's in it. It's a surprise surprise, like three. Cards. You still that piece of gum that you'd chew it three times and break a tooth no, but there's actually a card shop I found up there that had some of that, and I bought a pack. Did you read gum also? No, I've not opened 'em yet. I also bought a, a pack of 1989 Upper Deck King, Griff, Virginia, rookie card. I'm like, let's go, let's try to get Okay. Right I'm gonna save them. I'm put my mantle just, just to observe it. But I think it starts with that though. So that, that's, that's a show piece, right? Yeah. The Kind of collecting mentality. So I think with bourbon or or beer sometimes. You'll have people, and I've done this too, I'm guilty of it, is to get a really nice bottle and you wanna share it with people who don't wanna drink it by yourself. So you're waiting for the right time. Well, the right time, three years later, five years later, 10 years later, and then it's past its prime. Like I don't even want to open it. So then you end up with a beard just sitting Yeah. Yeah. bourbon, I think though people view it as a status symbol too. Think of it as like collecting watches. Yeah. Car collection, you know, something like that. Much less expensive than those for the most part, but it's a status symbol. It, it is. And I think that it kind of goes with that collecting thing. And we had talked about this before, it's like, are they speculating on the appreciation of some of these things? I mean, and we, we all know some people who have some very extensive bourbon collections and seen them, but, um, I don't know. good personal, but. You know, it's like in those situations, some of those people will open those bottles and feel free to drink 'em unless they have something that's extremely, extremely rare where it's like, you know, there's one of three bottles left in existence or whatever. Right. You're not gonna open those. Yeah. Um, because they're worth, you know, six figures. But for me, I'm like a middle of the road bourbon guy. Like I've got a few nice bottles, and if I find a bottle to replace it. It. Mm-hmm. I open one, you know, like I, I, I like to have one on the shelf and yeah. But I'll like, Hey, oh, I've got an extra one. Let's open this one and, you know, enjoy it. So I think that's a common line of thought is that my, it's my thought a lot of times. Like I wanna wait or I used to always wait till I had a backup before I'd open a because you're afraid if it's gone and you can't get it again, good. I'll miss it. then It's gone. Yeah, it is fomo. And then It's funny because once you're out. of It it just got really Right. Got that. You know what I mean? Well, but the, the thing too about that I, I'd say the, probably the nicest bottle of bourbon that I've ever had, and I still have some of it, is, uh, an old fits 11 year that real nice decanter. Yeah. BIB nice bottle. and um, I had it just shelved for a couple years and when I sold my business I was like, you know what, this is a good reason to open this bottle. And Now I don't have that juice, but I have the memories of when we, when we drank, you know, when we crack the bottle. And so for me it's also like you saying some of those, those special times when you wanna drink it, it's like, well now you're creating memories, right? That you know when that bottle's just sitting there, you're not gonna go, oh, I remember when I bought that 300 or whatever dollar bottle, but you're gonna go, I remember when I opened that, you know, or I remember the time when we shared it with friends. And I think that's the cool part about. Open a nice bottles. percent agree with you. I, I think I'm a collector at heart. Like I grew up collecting baseball cards, basketball cards, which you don't do anything with them, even trades. I was like, ah, I don't know if I wanna trade that. You know what I mean? It's like you get the fear of like not getting it back or you might get ripped off or this might be worth more. Yeah. You're looking up in the Beckett catalog, like to see where the No, no. Mine mine's a dollar 20. Yours, a dollar 18. You owe me, you owe me some boot. Like, come Yeah. I even had, I. remember I had a catalog and it had um, I think it had Frank Thomas on it. and I was like, this catalog's gonna be worth something. I'm gonna hold onto The catalog. some of those becketts are no jokes. Some a sports stray in the past, rolling stone bags, whatever. But, you know, I think, I think what it shows you and what I've learned as I've kind of grown with spirits, bourbon, beard, whatever, is that right Times now, you can't take it with you always. Right? I mean, it's great to save a special bottle, but a lot of times you just gotta open one and, and that's a very. mature way of thinking, which is odd for I'm very mature. But I have, I I theorize that this, this hobby of, of bourbon. And even going back to collecting cars or cards or cars for that matter. Um, I, I think, I don't think it brings that out in people. I think it attracts those types of people. Yeah. So I think the people that you see that are big into bourbon, um, they all have something in common and it is that they like to collect. I don't think you see a whole lot of, and there is some, there is some wiggle room here, uh, especially on the production side. But when it comes to like bourbon, the people that you see buying bourbon bottles are okay. there you go. decide All these people are the type of people that like to collect stuff. You don't, I don't think You see a lot of people going out looking for rare bourbons. That, That, you know, that don't collect things in general? hundred percent. you know what I mean? think it started here locally in Kentucky with Maker's Mark bottles. Yeah, we had the key, like a Kingman series for a horse racing track. Yeah. We had the UK memorabilia, like different ones. Of those, 3% of those bottles every good open. Oh, I've got a, I've got a huge collection at home. Literally. I've been collecting it since I was underage. Like dad would buy the bottle for me. I wasn't drinking it. It was just more to have like UK players in there and get their autographs like it was pretty awesome. Yeah, Yeah, exactly right. Um, As we're talking though, I'm gonna, I'm gonna open this one. So this is the newest Russell's 13. Russell's Reserve 13. This is their highest proof they've ever released. 1 23 0.8 It looks gross. rare bottle. Hard to get. I don't know if I want to open it, but I'm gonna go ahead and open. Speaking of, well see like, but I'm sure you've got like 12. of I actually don't, this is the only one I've got. Oh my God. I'm gonna put Nobody saw that. we'll just resell it and resell it. so. um, no, I think the, uh, the industry as a whole. It's the type of people that get into this are the people that get into a lot of different things. and I think you kind of like prove that point when, you know, you talk about growing up and the different types of things you collected. I did the same thing. You know, I had baseball cards. I never got in Pokemon cards. I had Marvel comic cards. I still got like a set of those at home, you know what I mean? Um, Um, but I saw, I saw something, you know, one thing I collected growing up was magic cards. So Magic gathering. cars. Yeah. I still got A bunch of those. I never got into that. don't have any left, but I, I was more, I was more of a player. Like I was, I was pretty good. I mean, I, I won some tournaments, won some big cards. I sold my entire collection twice. I won it back in the poker game and then sold That's hilarious. story, but anyway. My friend owns all my cards now and they're worth a lot of money. I almost cussed a lot of money though, mom. You have my permission to. Thank you. not cuss. I almost cussed, but my friend has a lot of money now. So I think when I look back at magic, so you could play with the cards, you need'em to play a game, but there was a lot of those cards worth a ton of money, right? You would see at tournaments, the big national tournaments that I would go to, like here in the States, like Ohio, Columbus area, would host some Indy. So I would go and play and you would see people that have these deck protectors. So plastic sleeves and they're, they're lightly shuffling, you know, make sure they're not scarred, whatever. And then tournaments progress to be, these cards are worth so much. You can put a piece of paper that says what the card is and keep your real card here. Like you, you have to have the card but you to prove right But It's a token that represents that card so you don't damage the card and it. can retain its Value. Out on the flip side of we should do that with bourbon. We should like put out the Russells 13 and be like, we're gonna drink this old crow. but Just know. it represents the Russells really Russell 13. like, oh dude, I've gone through 12 bottles of this shit stuff. Sorry, mom. Dam it. That go on. Yeah. So you know, the other, the flip side of that though is some of these tournaments, there was international players that would come in. I remember it. So what they would do, they didn't care. They'd be out there at the time,$200 card worth a lot, that same card day is over 10,000. But anyway, they're like bending it like your, like your, you know, shuffle naked it's a bicycle like bending the hell out of it, corners, frayed car bending all through it. And they're like every German in the tournament's like looking at'em like, what are, what are you doing? You know, they don't care. So I think you see both sides, even the bourbon collectors too. Like some people might clutch this bottle or bottle lock it forever. King Kentucky, we've drank a lot of on this show. Mm-hmm. But some people clutch those and I get it. But you gotta open it, you gotta let it go. do. A lot of people, I think that, that enjoy bourbon but aren't into collecting things. Um, I mean obviously it's, it makes sense they don't collect bourbon, but it's just like, you know, I think you go into those people's houses and they'll probably just have one or two bottles of bourbon at any given moment. You know, and maybe they've tried this here and there and stuff like that, but I don't feel like you see a lot of those people going out, standing in line. Trying to get, trying to win a pappy Well, a lot of times you'll see in that collection, people they're collecting like that bourbon. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You'll see guys that have a Pappy Van Winkle vertical, an old Fitzgerald vertical. Oh yeah. And their bar that's opened, they have Old Crow, they have Woodford Reserve, they And that's their like their go-to or whatever. Yeah. they're big balls, Blanton and Weller, and you're like, you've got a hundred thousand dollars on the shelf. Let's open one of those. Yeah, yeah. There is, there are anomalies in that. And I'll bring up. An example. Our buddy Pat. Okay. So we went to Pat's house and we did that episode where he let us, uh, try some of his, ah, Hirsch, which is, stuff to love other stuff too, Yeah, but that's like the, the stuff that he has is extraordinary. But almost every single one of his bottles are open. He's like one of those weird like anomalies to where he's in a position to where he can get. The good stuff. But he's not a collector per se. See, I still think there might be an element of him. being collector, but he opens everything. He doesn't He doesn't shelf it. He doesn't let it collect dust like he'll have, you know, at any given time of these rare whales, he'll have like 30 bottles open and a lot of 'em are multiples. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's just whatever. To him, it is really about the bourbon, I feel like. But there's not a lot of people that are like that. Well, but, and he is also a collector cars and other stuff too. But like, the thing about Patrick that I've learned is like he is an experienced guy. He wants to enjoy the experience of whatever it like he's collecting the right? It's travel, but he wants to have those good times. He wants to remember those events. Like, Hey, we opened this and you know, he can remember who he drank it with. You know, we, we had a, we had a blast over there talking with him, even if we weren't opening great stuff. I mean, it was, it was a fun time. Yeah. We opened a lot of stuff off camera, crazy stuff, and honestly couldn't have been more gracious host, like he said, open whatever you want. And I'm like, sweating. I'm like, I, I can't, I, I can't, you know, I like he kept having to adjust his pants and like, walk in over like this. I was I stand up for a while. I don't know what's going on, but. You know, looking at that. Even me, I like to open bottles, but sometimes I clutch some a little too long maybe. But him, I mean, he, he, he just, he, he's the guy bending his magic cards, you know what I mean? Exactly. I don't got 'em all. But he also, he also was in a good spot to where he bought most of those at retail or close to retail. He did. again, kind of goes along with the anomalous part of the story, but Yeah, he bought all his stuff prior to the bourbon boom. Like, Nobody wanted a H Hirsch when he bought it, so they won Pappy. But he, again, he was. in a unique position that he's like, okay, I'll take all three cases. And back then people were like, huh, look at this sucker I just made, Thank God, thank God. Yeah. But the guy at the liquor store was like, I just made a hundred dollars off. this one guy, you know? guy, You know? And then 20 years later he is like, no, man, unbelievable. um, no, but it's, it's something that is always just kind of like it, it's made me think and I'm trying to like. try to reason with it because there is so much high quality, We'll say bourbon for example, it goes for anything. It goes for wine especially, but there is so much high quality, high dollar stuff out there that is just sitting on people's shelves. I won't see it. Drew, you won't see it. Jason. You won't see it. I'm talking like volume wise. You know what I mean? Um, we've even, we've even discussed about, um, I don't know if I can say this. You, I think we talk about another episode like the, the prospect of, of, uh, Pappy, maybe artificially creating demand. by holding back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you, if, if that, you just say that hypothetically speaking, let's say something like that Is true. But then you couple that with the people not wanting to open their bottles that they have. it's just like, It's further driving up the actual market. yeah, the actual market of this is something in the single digit percentage of availability. I, I, I think there's a difference though. You know, you look at, so let's look, talk a beer for a second. Zombie dust from three fos. When I first tried that beer, it was one of the hardest beers to get that we could get in distro, right? You would go to Liquor Barn or big box store here, line up, get lucky. Maybe somebody dropped one. You get one 12 ounce bottle Oh my a Pale ale. For anybody that doesn't know this is a regular. pale ale. Yeah. They made the artificial demand. You could go to the distillery at any time and buy what you wanted. Brewery, sorry, brewery. Brewery. They have a distillery. Now. We're a little, little distillery now, and they close the brewery, the brew pub. Shut the brew pub down. But they were artificially creating that demand because they would throttle distribution limited out, make it so limited. With Pappy, though, I feel like they're almost like a luxury car brand. Yeah. Could they make 10 Morgan McLaren's a a year? Yeah, sure. Yeah. But you're going to cut down the quality. Yes. I think Pappy's staying, that's what they're trying to do, is stay in that, that realm.'cause they could sell as many barrels or bottles as they want. They're not jacking the price up. Like their price for a 23-year-old ball of Pappy, I think retail's under $500. Which is insane. is insane. That's insane Retail. for any or any bourbon like that. That's insane. You know, uh, what mean, it's, it's over, I don't know, over $3,000, you know, secondary. Yeah. So, and, and I agree with you to a degree, but like, where the analogy breaks down, he can just stop when you agree with me. It's fine. Well, where the analogy breaks down is that like, um, the McLaren aren't just flying off the shelves, Like list though, in those cars, right? I mean, yeah, I, yeah. But like. if They, if they printed more McLaren, They wouldn't just go like that. I don't the value. Yeah. Possibly, But like with a Pappy. If they printed more pappy, it'd be gone. It would be Gone. like Immediately. Eventually the value will come down because like supply is going to meet. demand. secondary would come down for Yes, exactly. And that's just, that's just the way it goes. But it's just like, again, this is a, just a weird anomalous situation to where it is. I mean, it is kind of inflated demand, but it's even more inflated because. of The inflation, of the demand.'cause people don't wanna open what they have and they're hoarding it and then it's like we never get see it. Well, do you think, again, we're just using McLaren as example, if they made more McLaren's, would those people who are in the market for McLaren's then turn they wouldn't have Bugatti. right? They would go to something else because that mm-hmm. is not there anymore? with I think that's a super valid point. I remember a story and clearly it was a story. Several, several years back that Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, wanted Pappy. He wanted to be able to serve at, in his luxury suites, to his friends and whatever, and he, he's like, well, I'll just call him up and get some, they're like, no, it doesn't work that way. No, don't that way. It don't, don't work that way. He's like, what? What do you mean? Like, this was before bourbon. Secondary is, we knew about it and stuff, but that's a pretty cool story. Like if you had Jerry Jones calling you and wanted anything, I had. And would pay a premium. No, I'd sell him whatever I had, but I mean, to say no, it's like, man, you're really staying true to the brand, so I'll give 'em some props there. They have really stayed true to true to that brand. It's been pretty cool. Yeah. Even though it's not worth the price, No. it's, it's, it's worth most of it's worth retail, right? Yeah. It's worth a little bit of secondary, but people's just inflated that so much. It's the holy grail. It's the Bugatti that you're buying secondary in bourbon. It is, and like we talk about experiences, which I think are really the most important part of, of all of this. You know, sharing with people, I think, I think Pappy has kind of just jumped as sharp to where I think if you open one, you never had it, let's just say for example. With your friends and you're like, oh man, this is amazing. It's a treasure. I feel like it's, it's one of those things that like two years down the road, you're like, why the hell did I hold onto to that for so Right? right. Yeah. And then the bottle is like, you know, three quarters empty. and You'd be like, that was, that was really a waste of my time. You know, even though the experience was. was, valued there. So what do you, what do you think about this one? So the Russell's 13, the newest release, I wanna make a Smart ass comment. about you and stuff like that, but I can't, this is, this is fantastic. But I love, I love the Russell. the I mean, we're all fans of the Russell this is a, this is a top Russell brand, the the Russell brand. yeah, yeah, some good Russell Brass stuff out there. Yeah. But this is probably a top, it's a top five Russell's Pour Wild Turkey pour. I've had. had. Yeah, if you, if you count dusty, it's the top 10, like old stuff. But I'm impressed. Yeah. I, I've had some thirteens I've, I've, I've been forced enough to try all the other ones and this is by far the best. It might even be better than the Russell's 15 last year, and that's, that's seen a lot. I thought you just said, I've been forced to try 'em all. I'm like, oh, that's so sad for I have, yeah. Un I've been un unfortunate enough to travel, so I'm gonna buy Yeah, yeah. No, this is great. I appreciate you sharing. That's you so much. Yeah, it's Open, open your stuff. Everybody your shit. Pardon? Sorry. Matt's mom, Uh, guys, if you like this, and share it. Uh, we sincerely appreciate it. Um, For more arsenic culture, you can check us out on all of the socials. we are@arsenicculture, and subscribe on YouTube. we'll see You on the next one. one.