As alluded to a few times now, liquor does not go bad. There are exceptions due to poor handling, but if you are mindful of the conditions you keep the bottles, they'll last for a very long time. So what kinds of things do I buy and sit on?
Generally speaking, it's stuff that I don't expect to see again. But rather than being super expensive stuff, I tend to save the "good and cheap" stuff. This trend started a few years ago when Signatory's Vintage line started getting scarce:
These are mostly eight years old and from unnamed distilleries within the regions. Some of them are pretty easy to figure out (There's only one distillery on Mull), but others vary over the years. But the key to their charm was that they were respectable single malt Scotches for about $20 a bottle. Why are they so hard to find anymore? Distilleries are severely cutting back on the numbers of casks they're selling to independent bottlers, and thus the casks for the Vintage line are either sat upon to bottle later in life or just aren't available at all.
I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I also collect Templeton's bottlings:
The love affair with this company unfolded on here years ago, and I've made a point to get examples of everything they've bottled. There are two bottles from the first year (they're the ones labeled "Single Barrel"), three bottles from the second and current year (They're "Small Batch"), and two from their "Quasquicentenial" batch. That last one isn't technically a rye whiskey, since its mashbill was predominantly cane sugar.
I've posted about the Black Bull and All Saints brands never coming back, and I've made sure to grab some of their bottles for my reserves. Looking back at the first pictures of the All Saints bottles, it's good to note that their levels haven't changed in the last year and a half. The Bruichladdich is the most expensive bottle in the reserves, but that's because I've considered it one of the best bottles of Scotch I've ever bought. There have been two more Peat Proposals since this one, and they just haven't been as good as the first one. And finally there are two bottles of John Hall's Three Grain from Forty Creek. John is very adamant that he'll never make it again because of the labor involved. What's odd about the two bottles is that they were imported by different companies and have different labels.
It's a decent collection, and I'll keep adding to it as time goes on. But now it's time to lug the boxes into the basement and keep them safe again.