Click the link below the picture
.
Brian Mosoff didn’t want to be the center of attention, so he left his table at Sotheby’s headquarters in the Breuer Building on New York City’s Madison Avenue and drifted to the back of the auction room. As the lots rolled by, Mosoff watched quietly, still fortified by the exclusive tasting laid on to butter up bidders prior to the action.
Sensing his moment, Mosoff struck, raising paddle 2529 for the first time. Another flourish wasn’t needed. The gavel came down, and Mosoff had made history—purchasing the most expensive bottle of American whiskey ever recorded: $162,500 for an Old Rip Van Winkle 20-Year-Old Single Barrel “Sam’s” bourbon.
“There was no part of me that felt, ‘What have you done?’” Mosoff, 41, tells TIME by video call from his home in New York City. “To this day, I’ve never had a single moment of regret.”
Mosoff’s acquisition captured the headlines, but there were plenty of other stars at The Great American Whiskey Collection, which collectively raised $2.5 million on Jan. 24, doubling pre-sale predictions, making it both the world’s most valuable sale of American whiskey as well as the most valuable single-owner spirits auction ever held in New York. All 319 lots were sold.
It’s just the latest signal that American whiskey is finally emerging from the shadows. While rare bottles of scotch can easily fetch seven figures—the most expensive is a $2.7 million Macallan Adami 1926, also sold by Sotheby’s— and Japanese whisky changes hands for hundreds of thousands of dollars, American whiskey has traditionally been the poorer cousin. (Note the extra “e” in the spelling for American and Irish whiskey.)
But as the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 250th year, Mosoff says it’s high time American whiskey got due credit for both quality and cultural significance. “American whiskey is still sometimes seen as not quite the same [as scotch],” says Mosoff. “But there are these historically important bottles and producers that have not yet made their mark on the global stage.”It’s overdue recognition that would track the buzz around American wine, with some neat historical parallels. In 1976, in an event to mark the U.S. bicentennial, Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, organized a wine tasting in Paris that pitted French bottles against Californian. Spurrier, who predominantly sold French vintages, wasn’t expecting anything other than a trouncing for the parvenu.
In the end, the all-French panel ranked a Napa County wine best in both the white and red category, prompting at least one judge to withdraw her ballot in horror. What became known as the “Judgment of Paris” was the final vindication that American wine had come of age.
“Overnight, that basically changes the entire wine world,” says Mosoff. “And I think that American whiskey is at that same inflection point.”
American whiskey’s lower price point means collectors are buoyed by a nascent American whiskey boom, especially if Asian and European collectors start getting in on the action.
“Prices will continue to go up as long as prices are proportionally so much lower than other categories,” says Jonny Fowle, vice president and global head of spirits for Sotheby’s. “If you’re buying bottles at $10,000, they can quite easily double in price. There’s so much room for growth.”
It’s also a validation of tangible value at a time when people are increasingly digitally detached, baring their souls to AI chatbots rather than neighborhood bars, and plowing their savings into ethereal assets like Bitcoin.
.
.JPG?branch=production&width=750&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=3:2)
.
.
Click the link below for the complete article:
.
__________________________________________
Leave a Reply