There is no such thing as a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle that isn’t rare and expensive. In fact, outside of maybe “delicious,” those are probably the two best words to describe the whiskey. But even within the wild world of Pappy, there are levels of price and rarity. And one of the rarest bottles in all of Pappydom just sold for a price that will make your eyes water.
That would be an ultra-rare bottle of Lottas Home Papa’s Private Family Reserve, which just sold for $35,000 at Sotheby’s New York in the Whisky & Whiskey Featuring The Richard Gooding Collection auction taht also included a number of highly prized whiskeys (and whiskies), including some 50-year-old Macallans, a 64-year-old Glenfiddich and a 23-year-old Pappy decanter.
So what exactly makes a single bottle of booze worth $35,000? Let’s get into it.
What is Lottas Home Papa’s Private Family Reserve?
In the late 1990s, the Pappy Van Winkle hype train was in its infancy. The move to Buffalo Trace Distillery and the corresponding bourbon craze that turned every bottle of the stuff into a unicorn was still a few years away, and bottles — or even barrels — could be purchased for prices one could actually describe as fair.
In 1998, Old Rip Van Winkle released the first bottles of its now-iconic Family Reserve Rye 13 Year Old. At the time, it was exclusive to the Japanese market, with the first American release not coming until the following year. But there was another version of the liquid that made its way to some shelves in Germany under a different name.
Stephan Macha, the owner of Weine & Feines in Heidelberg, Germany, purchased 60 bottles of 13-year-old rye from Julian Van Winkle III in 1998 to sell at his store. Since Pappy wasn’t a big draw yet, Macha created his own custom label for the whiskey, christening it “Lottas Home Papa’s Private Family Reserve 13 Year Old” after his daughter.
