WTF IS GOING ON WITH BOOKERS BACKYARD BBQ BATCH?
Many of you know that I’m an avid secondary market watcher, particularly the various auction sites. I track some of my favorite bottles over time to see if the hard core collectors are paying attention and if their value increases. It’s not unlike watching the stock market, and I enjoy comparing what is “hot” with social media and seeing if that heat is shared by the well heeled buyers online.
I see fairly consistent pricing (with mild swings now and then) with Elmer, Rock Hill, Wellers etc… and those don’t interest me much. What does interest me is the oddball stuff that comes out of nowhere (like the $200 prices for Taylor Rye’s).
Every once in awhile, you see this massive spike in a bottle like the Willett 80th anniversary bottle, which out of the blue sold, SOLD for $650 plus buyers premium, tax, shipping…. ($844!!!). That bottle hadn’t been on any sort of noticeable increase in price over many months, it had been pretty flat in the $150-200 range, and WHAMO! $650! ($844!). Shortly after that huge spike, a wave of the 80th’s were being offered on auction sites and the price cratered to around $300. Still an increase over the previous valuations, but 1/2 of that anomalous purchase.
2018-02 Backyard BBQ lurking in the background.
This has happened a great deal over time, Rabbit Hole boxed set rye once sold for an astounding $1,500 and then returned to earth. The Penelope du jour, any new limited release from Beam, the Heaven Hill 17yr… all get their 15 minutes and then back to normal. What am I getting at? Something is going on with Booker’s Backyard BBQ batch.
Most older Booker’s batches sell in the $125-170 range. Beamnuts love them and they’ll pay a premium for an old beloved batch (Kathleen’s is superb!) but they don’t go crazy like Buffalo Trace fans who will often pay $300+ for Elmer.
In September, out of the blue, with no previous price spike to speak of, Backyard BBQ sold at $380 ($504!!!!). What in the holy hand grenade was this??? This was a wild spike for no apparent reason.
I expected a deluge of these to show up on auction in October as wild price spikes tend to get people to sell, hoping to cash in on a hot trend, but nope, nothing. November saw one listing, and that closed at $340! ($454!!).
Beamnut indeed.
This frankly has left me shocked. I have one bottle of this batch left, having consumed one already and while it’s really good, it’s not what I would consider a game changer, or somehow worth 3x more than MSRP, or even twice the value of the superior Kathleen’s batch. I asked some folks that are Beamnuts if they had any idea what might be going on with that one, and they were left scratching their heads too, mostly weakly offering that Backyard BBQ was maybe the last “great” batch (I disagree here). It’s not older, it’s the 2nd highest proof of the named batches (128.8), it wasn’t particularly limited… nothing really conclusive here to say why the demand of the other batches hasn’t risen as sharply, or why this one took such a leap over everything else.
We will have to keep an eye on this one, and see if it’s an anomaly working it’s 15 minutes of fame, only to settle back in to the average of the others, or if it will lift up the prices of the others. Time will tell.
- Mickey Pinstripe