Throughout the past decade, bourbons popularity has exploded, and bottles have gone from just a fixture on a home bar to a sought-after collectible – and in some cases, an investment-grade asset. The rise of bourbon has been accompanied by the development of a strong secondary market where limited releases, discontinued bottles, and other prized pours flow out of the hands of well-connected middlemen and liquor store owners, employees, or friends of friends to thirsty collectors, sippers, and aficionado’s the world over.
As you look at that closet that’s turned into a bourbon bunker or shelves overflowing with bottles, the big question is: Is your bourbon collection worth a fortune? The good news is that there’s a simple way to find out.
Let’s break down how to evaluate your collection, how secondary market values are tracked, and why tools like the Bourbon Blue Book® and the Bourboneur app are becoming essential for serious collectors.
It feels like it was a long time ago, but only a handful of years back people bought bourbon to actually drink. I certainly still do, but so many don’t. The premiumization of the bourbon market, led by clever marketing from brands like Buffalo Trace, Old Forester, and Heaven Hill changed the game. In today’s market, folks who like to buy up and flip bourbon (often referred to as “taters”) seek out rare or collectible bottles for their resale value on the secondary bourbon market.
Just like a pair of old worn-out Abercrombie jeans from yesteryear or a some rare sneakers, the market has become dynamic with that perceived uniqueness or rarity driving demand. The hype train of any release is often stoked by the talking heads of the whiskey world on a thousand different YouTube channels explaining how the undertones of nougat and caramel combine to release a crescendo of flavor unlike anything they’ve ever experienced taking them into a multidimensional bourbon mouthgasm. Right.
A bottle you might have purchased for $80 sitting on the shelf a few years ago, however, may now be fetching upwards of a thousand dollars on the secondary market, netting you a better return than had you bought into Nvidia (okay, maybe not THAT good, but still, you get the point).
Before you head off to Facebook Marketplace to list your bottle of Blanton’s (by the way, not a suggestion, it’s against the rules!), it’s important to understand what exactly secondary pricing is and what it is not.
First off, “retail” is a rare bird when it comes to many coveted bottles of brownwater sitting on a shelf in a public setting. Often if you see an exciting bottle out and about, the liquor stores have marked it up multiples of what they’re going for on the secondary market even, giving rise to the term “bourbon museums” for liquor stores where you’d have to be stupid, or desperate to pay their premiums.
Unlike what you might pay for a bottle of bourbon out on the shelf, secondary pricing reflects what people are actually paying for a bottle outside of the confines of a retail establishment. These transactions often take place in innocent enough sounding Facebook groups, and specialty online marketplaces – none of which are easy to track at scale, and you’ll need a special invite to get into.
That’s where the Bourbon Blue Book® and the Bourboneur app come in, distilling a mountain of data often written in shorthand, misspelled, or only ascertainable by clicking into a picture to see a bottle number and taking those thousands of transactions and turning them into valuable, searchable data.
Think of the Bourbon Blue Book® like the Kelley Blue Book for bourbon.
The Bourbon Blue Book® is a constantly updated pricing index that provides fair market values for nearly seven thousand bottles of mostly bourbon, but also a lot of rye whiskey as well. It compiles real-world data from secondary market sales to offer an evolving snapshot of a bottle’s current secondary market value. The data is sourced from national sales pages to ensure that the values presented eliminate any regional variation in sales providing greater accuracy in valuations.
From common bottles like Colonel E.H. Taylor Small Batch to unicorns like Michter’s 20, the Blue Book gives you a real sense of what buyers are paying – not just what a liquor store or auction site says it’s worth. It doesn’t however track “old dusties” - bottles of once common bourbon from yesteryear which have enumerable complexity in terms of value – is the label faded, torn, stained, is the wax intact, is the tax strip intact, is there sediment in the bottom, is the fill level off, etc. etc. For these types of bottles, it’s hard to quickly give a value so they are excluded from the database.
The trademarked Bourbon Blue Book® has however become the gold standard for serious collectors trying to keep up with the market, which is constantly evolving. While the Blue Book is useful on its own, its full power is unlocked when integrated into a comprehensive platform like the Bourboneur app.
Bourboneur is a clean, modern app designed with the ethos “helping the world become whiskey wise™.” Developed with the average bourbon lover in mind, you can watch your collection grow, watch market trends, and make smarter buying or selling decisions with our rich data and using features like the newly debuted Trade Analyzer Tool.
Here’s why you need the Bourboneur app:
1. Automatic Valuation with Blue Book Integration
Once you log your bottle into your collection, Bourboneur automatically links it to current Bourbon Blue Book® pricing. This means your entire collection is given a nearly real-time estimated value based on up-to-date secondary market data and sales trends from across the nation.
Think of it as your own private bourbon portfolio dashboard – just like tracking stocks or crypto but tastier. With the Bourboneur Secondary Market Index, you can also see how the market is trending – as of writing, the market is up 0.48% year-to-date – a turn of pace after ending last year down just a little over 11%.
2. Collection Organization
No more spreadsheets or sticky notes, you’ll know exactly what you own and what it’s worth. Filter your bottles by name, oldest entry, or newest entry – not only keep tabs on the bottles you have but also the bottles you want with the Bourboneur Wishlist. Not sure what to drink next, quickly export your bottles to the Wheel of Destiny and give it a spin to see what you're opening. Use it also to pick something exciting from your opens - make custom wheels for high proof, single barrels, top shelf, ryes, etc.
3. Selling and Trading Tools (just released)
The Bourboneur app is always evolving, and we continue to find creative ways to make use of the rich data tied to the Bourbon Blue Book®. Now you can understand quickly if a potential Trade is favorable, worth shaking on, or a pass with the Bourboneur Trade Analysis Tool. Input the bottle(s) that you’re giving, and the bottle(s) that you’re getting and quickly see whether it’s a good deal or not for you.
4. Bourbon Tasting
Not only can you track your collection, but you can keep tabs on what you thought of those bottles you opened with our tasting companion. Rate your bourbons, based on nose, taste, and finish, use voice to text to compile your detailed notes, mark your bourbon as a favorite pour or quickly add it to your Wishlist with a click. Watch your personal bourbon rankings grow from 1, 2, to 100!
If you’re ready to see what your bourbon bunker is really worth, here’s how to get started:
Step 1: Download Bourboneur
The app is available on iOS and Android and takes just a few minutes to set up. A subscription gives you full access—and at just $3/month or $25/year, it can pay for itself with your first smart deal.
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Step 2: Add your Bottles
Start your search to input your collection tying each bottle to one of the nearly 7,000 bottles tracked in the Bourbon Blue Book.
Step 3: View Your Portfolio Value
Once entered, each bottle contributes to your portfolio value, based on Bourbon Blue Book data. Your dashboard will show a total estimated collection value, along with any appreciation since you bought in.
Step 4: Plan Your Next Move
Use the data to make informed choices: sell, trade, or hang on for further appreciation. You can also identify undervalued bottles or track which distilleries are trending upward.
Not every bourbon is going to net you a pile of cash, and many aren’t probably going to be worth a ton, but certain bottles can certainly fetch quite a price – thousands, even tens of thousands in some cases, on the secondary market. Data matters.
If you’re all about discovering standout bourbons, smart investing, and staying ahead of trends in the whiskey world, join our community of over 26,000 fellow Bourboneur’s.
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