Expert: Paul Wagner - 1/19/2009

Question
I have 5 different bottles of unopened alcohol.  Maybe the one I know the least about is the Bellows Liqueur Irish Whiskey.  I would like to know their value and want to sell them.  The others are a bottle of Long John 12 year old Blended Scotch in a Clay bottle, Beams Choice Bourban in an Ohio decanter and one in a decanter with a pheasant on it, and the last is a Gilbey's Blended Scotch in a 1964 Worlds Fair decanter.  I can be emailed at  and I really do want to sell them.

Answer
HI Tom

As for the liquor inside, Distilled products like this don't improve (or get worse) with age because the alcohol level is so high that they simply don't change much over time.  So unlike some fine wines, distilled spirits don't appreciate in value over time in the bottle.  Yours should be perfectly good to drink, but it won't have any higher value than a current bottling of the same stuff.

Sorry I can't give you more exciting news.

But the bottles you mention may have a lot more value to collectors of old bottles or decanters.  CHeck with the folks at antiquebottles.com.  They have a ton of information, and often are very interested in these special packages.

Paul Wagner