Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery Charitable Auction Starts Today

Are you, oh bourbon collector, banging your head against the wall at the moment because you can’t track down a bottle of that fabled Van Winkle bourbon of which there is even less to go around this year? What if you could enter into a charity auction sanctioned by the Van Winkle clan to win bottles of their various expressions, with the proceeds going to a new “farm distillery” project being undertaken in Kentucky? If that interests you, read on to learn more about how you can enter.

The Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery Charitable Auction, which is being hosted online by Wally’s Wine Auctions of New York, starts today and runs through November 22. Registered bidders for this auction will be able to partake in trying to acquire one of five individual bottle lots of the rare, cult level collector bourbons. The bottles, signed by Julian Van Winkle, include the 10-, 12-, 15-, 20- and 23-year-old offerings.

The project these auctioned Van Winkle bourbons are supporting is the Locust Grove farm distillery project in Louisville. Locust Grove itself is a museum and historic site, and at one time was the “1790s farm of William and Lucy Croghan, famous for its connection to General George Rogers Clark, Revolutionary War hero and Louisville’s founder, who lived with the family and died at Locust Grove in 1818.”

The farm distillery in question will reportedly represent “the small farm-scale distilling activities of early Kentucky, before mass production.” To that end, it will use “a period-style log building to demonstrate the role of distilling in early Kentucky through exhibits, costumed interpreter programs, and demonstrations.” If you are expecting to be able to buy or consume whiskey from it, however, you will not be able to do so, as the “exhibit will be educational in nature, and will not produce spirits for consumption.”

The Locust Grove distillery, which is already getting financial backing from “Kentucky’s old bourbon distilling families, is expected to be completed by next fall. The bourbons in the auction meanwhile, could fetch upwards of nearly $6,000, according to estimated values of the different bottlings in total, but my guess is they will each go for much higher then what their projected worth is stated as.