“Your whiskey stash is probably better than mine” and “Hoarding Whiskey Part 2“
I think my whole point is to not delay your satisfaction. If you are out there procuring bottles and enjoying them and building your bunker that’s great. I don’t see the point in having 3 bottles of 06 Pappy 15 and not drink it when you want to drink it. Don’t buy whiskey to sit there and look at it over drinking it.
..and I found this post to be a nice summary that can be related to beer:
Jason, regarding your previous post — my main objection was that just because someone has a stash does not mean they are hoarding. Hoarding projects an aura that one is collecting without drinking. Just having to show. To say, “Hey look what I have.” Having a stash does not infer hoarding by itself.
Would hope that most of the readers and posters here are not hoarding and not flipping. Those are cancers for the industry driven by the seven deadly sins. With eBay out of the business as a resale market perhaps some normalcy will return. We are also now starting to see some push back by the drinking public on some of the games being played not so much by the distilleries but by a number (not all David D.) of resellers. These are good signs
I still feel strongly that we fall into categories and, like a Venn Diagram, those categories overlap. The main problem I suffer from is “buying / trading more than I can drink”. A lot of guys in the Bourbon world have the same problem. They see a great price on something rare and they buy it and leave the store with 5 bottles of whiskey that take a week each to drink. A week later, they’re on a trip and see more rare stuff they can’t get in their state and suddenly, there’s a 10 week backlog on bourbon for a guy who buys 2 bottles a week. Before long, enthusiasts who share your hobby think you’re a hoarder and family members think your’e an alcoholic.
I am not taking on my problem head on as in stopping beer buying and trading entirely. My latest beer haul is a testament to that. What I am doing is focusing on styles that age better so at least I’m not rushed to drink them. My GF hears me groan someone sends me an IPA in a trade.being a home brewer and living an hour from Lawson’s, Alchemist and Hill Farmstead means I’m never short on hoppy beers.
Want to avoid this hoarding problem? Buy / trade no more than you can drink and don’t buy or trade more until what you acquired is consumed. If your fridge is full, you aren’t allowed to get more beer until that’s gone. However, those of us born after 1980 suffer from “FOMO” with an unhealthy dose of entitlement which leads to the desire to acquire every limited release and variant of hyped or rare beers. This disease of the mind is akin to stamp collectors. If you’re drinking your beer, at least you are a step above those dudes.
In short, I’m guilty of buying more than I can drink but a hoarder, I am not. There are beers that I am saving for certain friends to open with me or for when I get a salary increase or when I get married but, for the most part, nothing I have is off limits. I’m not about to open CBS and Rare on a random Monday like some guys but I don’t look at my CBS and think, “That’s a pretty bottle. Let me instagram this so others can be jealous.”
Jason’s argument that people need to drink their Whiskey is very valid and applies to beer as well. Browsing Beer Advocate makes me feel like all hope is lost. Maybe some of you feel the same way reading this blog but, there’s something I’ve noticed about the Internet. When you step away from it and go to a beer tasting or beer festival, the politics, hoarders, weirdos and oddballs all turn into a few dozen fat dudes wearing Pliny T-shirts and we all share beers. The more time we spend online judging each other versus actually looking at beer as a social activity, the more warped our perspective is.
It’s a shame I can’t buy Bourbon County stout at my local bar. It’s a shame that I have to drink it at home by myself because I don’t have any local beer geeks to come by and drink it with me. Despite the overall size of the beer industry, it’s still clear that we’re the trailblazers. Explaining to our kids one day that we had to drink at home alone or trade boxes of beer if we wanted a decent barrel aged stout, they’ll think we’re crazy. It seems like a lot of work and it is. It also can be a pretty depressing hobby. Here I am at midnight sipping an infected barley wine and writing to a bunch of anonymous guys about beer.
Then some people read this post while sitting in their underwear at home sipping a beer and that’s pretty much it. Hoarders, traders, tickers and drinkers are all different overlapping groups. At the end of the day, what a person does with their money is their choice.