Bidding advice
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Placing a Maximum Bid
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Incremental Bidding Explained
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Bottle Details
Old Rip Van Winkle 12 Year Old Old Time Rye 2000 / Rinaldi Import
The Old Rip Van Winkle brand was a pre-prohibition bourbon label, revived by the Van Winkle family after they were forced to sell their Stitzel-Weller distillery by its board of directors. New owners, Somerset Imports, granted Julian Van Winkle II (son of the famous 'Pappy') the continued use of an office at the distillery, and first option on purchasing casks to bottle his new brand with. When he died and the business passed to his son, Julian III, this courtesy was no longer extended, and he moved bottling to the old Hoffman distillery in Lawrenceburg in 1983, renaming it Old Commonwealth. He was still able to buy Stitzel-Weller stock though, and introduced the famous Pappy Van Winkle range in homage to his grandfather, using well-aged barrels from the distillery the now-legendary figure once so lovingly ran. When Stitzel-Weller was closed down by United Distillers in 1992, it was only a matter of time before stock would run out. This necessitated a partnership between Julian Van Winkle III and Buffalo Trace distillery in 2002, seeing all bottling move there, initially using the remaining Stitzel-Weller barrels, with these eventually replaced by Buffalo Trace distilled stock. The product from all eras is revered, and the brand is considered to be the first premium bourbon line to have been produced in the US.
This is the old style Old Rip Van Winkle 12 year old rye, which is extremely rare. These were originally bottled in 1997 using whisky from Medley distillery, and bottled by Julian III at Old Commonwealth. The following year, the same reserves were bottled as the 13 year old Family Reserve Rye, which became an annual release with the same age statement, despite continuing to age in cask for a further five years before being tanked at 19 years old in 2004. Later releases of Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye were blended with Bernheim's Cream of Kentucky. The original batch finally ran out in 2017, making this original release incredibly sought after.
This is a circa 2000 bottling with the 12 year old age statement, meaning the whiskey is closer to 15 years old.
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