Though the calendar year starts in January, I was born in June and so my own year starts then. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. But I occasionally do My Year’s Resolutions.
For example, back in June 2023 I committed to a full year of not buying whiskey. When that June-to-June year was done, I found myself with fewer bottles on the home shelf than I’d have had otherwise, of course. And I noticed with a certain gravity just how much money I’d saved that year! 🙄
But I’d also opened bottles I might not have otherwise, the kind one tends to save for special occasions or out of fear something like them will never come around again. In my Year of No Buying, an average Tuesday night became a special enough occasion to open something uncommon or highly regarded. I began to realize what a myth the concept of “rare whiskey” actually is, when one considers the sheer volume of Limited Editions rolling off the world-wide whiskey conveyor belt each year.
Since that experiment in whiskey-buying abstinence, I’ve remained freer in my uncorking habits, and have generally bought less on average than prior. Impulse buys are now fewer and far between. And I feel confident that my FOMO when it comes to whiskey has been effectively eradicated. Huzzah!
Now that I’m of an age one would deem on the far side of the hill, as each birthday ticks past I grow increasingly wary of the perils of retirement. I’ve spent my life working as a freelance theater teacher and artist—two lean lines of work not known for being particularly nest-eggy. This has made whi$key a questionable hobby for me to have taken up. Even cheap whiskey ain’t that cheap!
So, from this June to next, I’ve decided to try another financial limitation. Over the course of my current trip around the sun, I shall allow myself only twelve whiskey purchases.
I won’t add to this experiment any particular limits on price per bottle. My innate fear of bankruptcy already keeps my spending fairly well in check, generally speaking. I’ve certainly plunked down $300+ for a bottle in the past—sometimes worth it, sometimes not at all. But you’ll never see me coming home with a Van Winkle 23 or Yamazaki 18, that’s for sure. So no matter whether I spend $15 or $150 on a given bottle, by year’s end I’ll have only bought twelve.
I’ll also not give myself any rules around when in the June-to-June year these purchases can be made. It could end up being one per month, neat and tidy. Or if I bought six in one month, the remaining six would be spread out across the other eleven months. I’ll also keep my mind open to the possibility of buying less than twelve bottles. Twelve will be my maximum, not my goal.
Further on the note of timing, there are some bottles I bought months ago that have yet to arrive. When they do, these won’t count among my June-to-June twelve as they’ve already been purchased. Any bottles gifted to me also won’t count, given I will not have purchased them.
Finally, I already know I must reserve one of my twelve for the annual St. George Spirits Single Malt release, a December holiday tradition in my home. So that leaves me with eleven wild cards to play with!
Based on my Year of No Buying experience, I expect this new challenge will similarly heighten my attention to why I buy what I do. Nobody needs whiskey. We want it. So why do I want what I do? Is it the story behind it? The age statement? A region I’ve been hearing good things about but not yet explored? An unusual release from a distillery I love? An old favorite I’ve not revisited in a long while?
When I think about answers to these questions from prior to my now embarking on this experiment, I’d say it has been curiosity and opportunity that drive my purchasing most.
For example, while going through a bit of a sherry fatigue spell, a bottle I’d picked up of very sherry-forward Mars Tsunuki Japanese Single Malt prompted me to seek out a bourbon-forward Tsunuki. This led to a comparison of the two, which in turn reignited my curiosity about Japanese whisky generally. This triggered my picking up Dave Broom’s book, The Japanese Way of Whisky, in which he makes a solid case for why that region’s whiskies command such intrigue and high prices. The combination of high prices and subtle flavor profiles had always kept Japanese whisky largely off the table for me. But before I’d finished the book or either of those two Mars bottles, I’d already purchased a third Mars release.
As an example of opportunity, when K&L advertised they’d acquired a single cask of Balvenie single malt, aged 35 years and bottled at cask strength, and were able to sell it for $250—a mere fraction of what a distillery-direct Balvenie 35 Year might cost, or even what most independent bottlers would charge—I couldn’t click “Add to Cart” fast enough. How often does one have the opportunity to try such a well-aged mainstream scotch brand, freed from chill-filtration or artificial color or any watering down, and at such a price? That just doesn’t happen. And yet it did!
Okay. We’ll see how this goes.
I’m already so curious to see what I end up buying over the coming year. And of course as I write this I already have 130+ bottles on the shelf anyway, so, I’ll not be wanting for a good pour on any given day.
Cheers!
Past Whiskey Journey Posts
Part 1 – Getting Started
Part 2 – Checking In
Part 3 – Why I Whiskey
Part 4 – On Weller Antique 107 and the Art and Practice of Letting Go
Part 5 – What have three years of writing whiskey notes done to me?
Part 6 – Nosing The Grind
Part 7 – What would happen if I didn’t buy whiskey for a year?
Part 7.5 – halfway through The Year of No Buying
Part 8 – Turning-Point Bottles Pinned To My Journey’s Map
Part 9 – my Year of No Buying comes to its end…!
Part 10 – To be continued…
Part 11 – Curiosity, Bunkering, and Bartering
Part 12 – Maintaining Perspective
Part 13 – Getting my nose back after COVID
The Right Spirit 