People tend to collect all sorts of things that fascinate them or because the items hold fond memories for them. I am sure that most people collect something. I maybe collect too many things and one of the items that I collect is wine. Collecting wine is a good hobby, because you can buy some great wines when they are first issued and if you have a good cellar, you can store the wine until they are at their peak of drinking pleasure; and for some wines that can be ten or twenty years later and the price will be too dear for most of us to purchase at that time.

My Bride has the collecting bug as well, and one collection she started years before we ever met; she collects those small “airline” bottles of liquor. Some are from vacations that she took and tried some different drinks, some are from conventions and conferences that she attended and some just because they tickled her fancy. I bring this up, because I had to take down her collection when I painted the family room, and afterwards I had to rearrange them back in position after dusting and checking to see if there were duplicates that had been placed up there. The good thing is that most liquor can be enjoyed years after the purchase without the worries of the beverage going bad. Some of the bottles go back to the days when there were tax banderols over the closure which had to be broken when the bottle is opened, something you don’t see any more.

As I was sorting them and checking for duplicates, I got a chance to admire these small bottles, which for the most part are actually miniatures of the actual bottles of the liquor. Some of them are in glass, some are in ceramic and of course nowadays some are in plastic. As I was looking at each bottle, I realized that over the course of years, some have even been opened and tried. Some of the bottles were very expensive, I mean after all, even an ounce of Johnny Walker Blue is dear, if you don’t think so, order a glass of it at your favorite restaurant. Some are very cute, like a miniature bottle of Chambord or a miniature bottle of Pinch. There was even a bottle of Monte Alban Mezcal con Gusano, which is Tequila with a worm in the bottle; still with the tax stamp seal (I guess no one tried that particular bottle). As I look at this collection, it makes me remember one of our vacations to Charleston, South Carolina and the quirky law that was on the books and it may still be in practice today. All the bars and restaurants used these individual small bottles to pour a drink or to make a cocktail. One could buy a fifth of liquor at a liquor store only for personal consumption. So even my Bride has a collecting passion, and this is only one of many, but it is close enough to merit mention by this Raconteur.