Facebook began feverishly shutting down groups, especially those with obvious names, like Bourbon Secondary Market. eBay started yanking down “Blanton's topper, sealed!” posts, knowing full well they were illicit sales of unopened bottles. Skirting the RulesAs I continued to uncover and gain acceptance in more Facebook groups, the bourbon secondary tsunami made landfall. Owen Powell founded the Bourbon Secondary Market, which had over 55,000 members when it was shut down by Facebook. One fact was crystalline: the bourbon secondary market had reached fever pitch. Blame the taters (slang for a whiskey drinker with more money than taste) blame the allocation system of control states blame the distillers for poor allotment of limited releases blame the likes of the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets for declaring that bourbon was a winning investment that would only appreciate in value. Oftentimes the bottles were snapped up within minutes by eager buyers. Unfathomable pricing abounded, largely propagated by instaflippers: people who brazenly post snapshots of bottles for sale from the driver's seat of their car, listing them at inflated prices before they've even left the store parking lot. Some groups on Facebook dedicated to reselling bourbon had surpassed 50,000 members, turning the social network into a venerable bazaar, rife with unicorn bottles rarely glimpsed in the wild. “I don't know how I feel about being included,” replies Paul.Up until the fall of 2019, the bourbon secondary market was a seemingly unstoppable wave. His suspicion aroused, I tell him I'm both a whiskey lover and a journalist investigating the state of the bourbon secondary market. “Man, you're not the IRS, right?” he nervously chuckles in reply to my string of questions surrounding his sourcing of vintage whiskeys. He's braggadocious until pressed on the intimate details of his operation. He has spent fifteen hours a day driving around, hitting up scores of liquor stores across multiple states. He claims he's the first call most retailers make when their allotment of allocated whiskeys arrives. He sells and ships 30 bottles “in a good week.” He boasts that he can get you any bottle you want within 24 hours-any bottle. “But a lot of it was sold to buy this house.” The 12 Most Commonly Flipped WhiskiesFor all his proclamations to the contrary, most whiskey lovers would call Paul a flipper. “There used to be a lot more,” Paul gestures to his prized collection. Paul yanks out various bottles he calls “fire,” including Willett 12 year old, 2007 Hirsch, and 2006 Van Winkle. These are the same whiskies that appear in glossy international auction catalogs. Downstairs in his ramshackle basement, Paul's bunker of 300-plus bottles is divided between two shelving units, one containing every coveted bourbon and rye you've dreamt of owning and the other containing rare scotch-holy grail whiskies like Brora 25 and 37 year olds-and Japanese whisky, including Yamazaki Mizunara Oak from 1984. We connected with each other via a Facebook bourbon group and I've come, as agreed, with cash to buy a store-pick Four Roses Single Barrel. I don't have that much power.”I'm in Paul's home, just outside New York City. I'm not the reason people can't get Van Winkle. “It's like walking into a store, seeing 10 lotto tickets, one of which is a winner, and taking any of the nine losers. Children's books, plastic bags, and crumpled cash fill the occasional voids between the rare bottles packed upon the stained table.“But I never feel bad about selling whiskey,” Paul admits. Paul's makeshift processing center is not what you'd call tidy. My eyes drift to ogle another table full of enviable whiskies-Hirsch Select 25, Sazerac 18, and Hibiki 21 year olds. “I sell high-end whiskey as a middleman,” he clarifies. As the midday sun streams in through his kitchen window, he leans back against a folding table that's overflowing with whiskey-shipping supplies, running a hand through his bed-head hair. "The term ‘flipper' sounds so bad,” Paul H.* groans after I casually refer to him as such.
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