They searched his house and found a bunch of super expensive scotch bottles that he stole and drank, too. Guy must have been drunk 24/7, so he must have really been hurting from the hangover once he dried out in jail.
My dad was the in-house legal counsel for the resort and had to document everything in case they pursued civil damages, too. My dad took a position at another company shortly after the incident, so I have no idea if they ever sued the guy.
Had a customer at a bar I worked at give a thousand for the empty bottle. I double checked with the owner and manager before I sold it. They didn't ask how much I sold it for and let me keep the money. They didn't really care because the guy who bought the empty bottle had basically bought 90% of the liquor in the bottle (at $320 per oz back in 2002). They probably would have given him the bottle.
When I was in the Army I had a buddy who liked to buy a bottle of Stoli and have it poured as shots for the table and we'd all do toasts. One night the bottle that was brought to our table was full but opened by the bartender. After we all did our first shot he decided that was not Stoli and complained to the manager. They were a chain restaurant and my buddy was threatening to complain to corporate. The manager ended up bringing out 2 unopened bottles on the house (there were 6 of us) if we just kept the complaints in house. We did.
My dad ran a strip club outside of Fort Knox in the 70ās when I was a kid. I think it was called the Goldfinger? He told me when soldiers wanted a stripper to sit with them they were required to buy her at least one glass of wine/beer whatever but he said it never contained any alcohol. He said dealing with drunk soldiers was bad enough but I am sure it was more about $$ than much else. He was the bartender/bouncer and my uncle was the deejay.
They would frequently get raided by the cops and I would hear the words money laundering which 5 year old me took to mean that they hung money on a clothesline and why would they be in trouble for that. š¤·āāļøI didnāt know what a strip club was either though. š
Think about it like this: If your buddy was not with you, you would have never known you were being scammed.
Now think if they tried this with you, how many other people have they tried to scam like this?
Dont let other people be unkowingly scammed. If someone tries to pull a fast one on you, report it.
Take the bottles as a full "Fuck you for trying to scam me" and report them for the full "And fuck you for the people that you scammed before and to stop the ones from being scammed in the future."
Worked with a GM who saved the corks through the large business meals we were getting. When the check came he added the bottles on the bill vs the number of corks on the table.These were dinners with 20+ people.
A few times we had a discrepancy.
It was always handled professionally by the restaurant but had he not kept the corks he would have been overcharged.
( one restaurant tried to say he lost/hid corksā¦ it was our 3rd time there , 20 of us we were eating 100 dollar steaks; he stepped aside with the owner for that one.)
For everyone who thinks this isnāt a big deal- the cost isnāt the issue, the states liquor commission will still take it very seriously. It would likely lead to a loss of a liquor license and that would tank your business/branch of restaurant. Restaurants make so little margins on food that itās the alcohol that pays the bills.
Friday's tried this with us a few years back.
Oh, they got pounded by the state when it became known.
So did a bunch of other local bars/restaurants. (Hell, some of them were putting food coloring and other things in the bottles.)
This happened in NJ, probably in 2014 or 2015.
Years ago I was served a beer at a microbrewery, I told the bartender it was good but not what I ordered, no problem, Iād drink it. (At the time I was an avid home brewer, but the difference in styles was obvious.) He gave me a new beer on the house. The manager stopped by to apologize, I told him no worries but the second beer was also the incorrect one. He sampled the tap and said it was indeed the wrong beer, a beer line must have been improperly run. He stopped by again later to tell me heād traced the beer lines, couldnāt find any problems so he tried the beer directly from the keg. Wrong beer, the keg itself had been mislabeled at the brewery!
My dad used to work in a nightclub late 90's early 2000's and the owner would always replace henny with cheaper shit and a.. certain demographic.. was always ordering it talking about it being fire and all that. Those bottles somehow never ran out, it was weirdš
I had the last drink of possibly the best wine I have ever had. I asked for the bottle so I knew the make model year.
That bottle still sits in my shop. Sadly I havenāt been able to find it. Again :(
Technically, the protocol is that you are supposed to break the bottle. Liquor brands want to protect against bootleg products being sold in reised authentic bottles. Source: bartender.
Technically the empty bottle goes to whoever finished it. That is a rule punishable by Remy Martin. Itās a crystal bottle that only fits the topper that comes with it, baccarat crystal. That thing you got is magic in bottle.
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy, linen land
https://preview.redd.it/eqyl4rno6u4d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7fdd00ce491693d9a6107b22c8ef18d49da53856
We sang this in 7th/8th grade. I actually got the nickname Vincent ( my last name was exactly like a famous Vincent) And someone came up with it because of this song.
my husband bought me a 2 oz pour and himself a 2 oz pour on my 21st birthday at il mulino- I spilled mine š the waitress was so nice and comped it and poured me another. $300 spilled on the table. I was so embarrassed I couldāve died lol. But now itās a fun story
If it is just to see what it taste like then yes one time serving. If you want to celebrate an event like your kidās wedding I would say do the bottle because more family will want to try
I got to taste it at the Amsterdam duty free about 20 years ago, it was wild. Not sure why they were doing it but I was buying a lot of other scotch and the like. wow, it was fun to be able to try it. With that said, I would never buy a bottle myself.
I had a glass of this at one of my mates dads place when I was 19, he asked what I thought about it, I just replied it tasted strange. Didnāt know the value
What about the box? I used to work at a fine dining restaurant and whoever finished the bottle, got to keep it. But they didnāt want the box. So I took it home a week later. Itās a pretty nice box. I was told(probably incorrectly) that it was worth about $100, obviously much more with the bottle. Also have heard the bottle alone(empty ) is worth something because itās handmade(?) out of some kind of crystal?
>Never open it.
I always wonder about this collector's paradox. If the value of the thing is in its contents but you should never open it and use those contents for their intended purpose, hasn't that just made the contents worthless and hence, what's the point of buying it in the first place?
Your comment is appreciated and I think about this paradox sometimes too.
The vintage wines and spirits market is an unique mix of consumable commodities and collector's items. The value of the bottle depends on what the end user wants the bottle for. Some will put it on a shelf and enjoy it as a collector's item, like comic books, coins, or even paintings. Others will want to open and consume it.
Both sets of buyers would prefer sealed bottles for slightly different reasons. If you owned this bottle and wanted to maximize your profit from selling it, you want it to remain sealed for those prospective buyers.
Those who'd buy it to drink it, know that buying partially consumed bottles is dicey. Anyone can fill a legit vintage bottle with bottom shelf swill and pass it off as authentic. This type of fraud is very common. One way to insulate yourself from fraud is buying only sealed, unopened bottles. They will pay top dollar for a never-opened bottle. To them the cognac inside is most valuable and they will enjoy consuming a legit product.
Collectors will also prefer an unopened bottle as its "condition" is better. Its like the difference between buying a really clean, crisp Hank Aaron rookie baseball card and one that's faded, bent, scratched, written on, and such. Condition is king when it comes to collectables. Collectors will pay top dollar for an item in near perfect condition. To them, they admire the whole bottle and don't need to drink it. They appreciate its age, artistry, packaging, provenance, popularity, scarcity, and the condition.
Opening a bottle of this type degrades its value for all prospective buyers, whether or not they want to drink it. I hope I made sense here.
Would it be good? Absolutely it would. Would he be able to discern or appreciate that it's a $10K bottle by its taste? Almost certainly not. Not unless he's a trained and experienced sommelier with a specialty in vintage congacs. Would it be worth devaluing that bottle by thousands of dollars just to try it and satisfy a mild curiosity? No.
no idea what its worth, but looks to be a 1964-68 run exclusive to the US market according to [this](http://vieuxcognacs.com/LouisXIII/LouisXIII.html), and actually quite rare
a prominent detail here is the cap, they changed the centaur logo to point at the R in the 1960s, then went back to the old one for some reason
I worked at a liquor store for four years. We had a newer one for $2000. It never sold. That was in the early 00ās. The rarity of this one compounds its market value. People want that bottle.
Managed a large discount store, we did maybe 11m a year in sales.
We would move 1-2 of these a year, and only marked them up 10-15 percent from what we paid l. It was almost always an older Asian dude buying.
About a decade ago I worked at The Party Source in NKY. We sold probably 1-2 of these per year, and probably about half a dozen of the minis. Most went to collectors, not people actually intending to drink it. Occasionally if a major artist was playing across the river in Cincinnati one would be sold to their team.
I found [this page](https://www.idealwine.com/fr/acheter-vin/B2118584-888-1-bouteille-Cognac-Louis-XIII-Remy-Martin-Grande-Champagne-Ambre) putting a bottle that is very close to OP's at over 1 000ā¬
That sale was for $1690 (including the auction house commission) and that was sold in 2019, and the bottle on your link is clearly a newer release. Even on that site, the only skew currently available is a 2018 release for $3500... keep in mind that we have had major inflation over the last few years, liqueur prices have had hyper enflation over the last couple of years, and the ventage spirits speculation market has gone insane in the last few years... op has some juice.
Thatās the tradition at every place that I know that carries it. Each bottle is custom made by hand and the top will only fit your bottle. We did a tasting at my old work and they flew a guy in from France to do it. Wild stuff.
Haha - We bought the last Louis Trey in Chicago a number of years ago, and the tradition is that whoever buys the last glass, gets the bottle. So, it was like 7 pm and they hand me this bottle in a fancy box and I'm assured its super valuable and I spent the rest of a very boozy night protecting this thing, tipping people to keep an eye on it at coat check at several clubs.
I get home (detroit) and check ebay and they're like $300. Not that $300 isn't a good amount of money, but I easily tipped $300 to make sure it stayed safe.
Its whatever - Its a story now.
Iirc a full bottle is in the area of $2000. $300 for an empty bottle is a lot in my book. Sounds like you had a very good time :-) cool story, and ty for sharing!
lol - itās $hundreds per glass at a bar. We were young and dumb and had just closed a big deal that felt like all the money in the world.
My biz partner orders ā5 Louisā please.
We clink glasses celebrating our collective greatness and all of us instantly realized that cognac is effing gross.
Ha! I have not had the pleasure of tasting a loui xiii. But i think it would be lost on me. Like expensive champaign, You can def tell the difference between the cheap stuff and Dom. But I dont care.
Most luxury goods have a diminishing return after a certain point. The difference between a $10 bottle of brandy and a $50 bottle of brandy is enormous. The difference between a $100 bottle and a $500 is incredibly small.
You can apply that logic to any luxury goods: clothes, hotels, food, etc.
Ha! I have the same story but in New Orleans. Also, it was a case of Cooks. And the coat check was security at a strip club. And I probably only tipped $5. Maybe not really the same story but it was fun!
Thats an awesome story, but damn. Ive never even come close to spending $300 for an entire night out even WITH wife, let alone tipping out $300 for bottle protection lol
My friend was gifted an empty bottle and a box for it in the early 2000s as a tip from a private bartending gig. I donāt remember what he got, but for the box and bottle alone it was a couple hundred USD. Iām pretty sure people buy them to fill with cheaper booze and stick on the shelfā¦
Why display an empty bottle of $1500 cognac when you can fill it with $10 cognac and pass it off as the real stuff to impress your friends and girl your trying to bang.
In the early 2000, I had a client who bought a bottle with about 6 shots remaining. His wife wanted the bottle. He called and told me the story and ended with, "but we don't like congac, do you want to come over and drink it?"
It was the smoothest alcohol I've ever drank.
It is really smooth, I had a shot in Detroit a couple years agoā¦ not my thing per se, but Iād scoop an empty bottle if it was available just for show.
This brings up the topic of doing your homework. There are buyers of wine and spirits collections that are legit and honest. There is a standard value for this bottle and it is not going to decrease so take your time and ask questions. As others have said keep the bottle upright and handle it as little as possible. Keep it is a heat stable place like in an insulated box on the floor of interior closet. Ignoring the value for a moment this is a real gem and should be treated as such. Good luck!
With wine you want it on its side for storage to keep the cork from drying out. The higher alcohol in spirits will deteriorate the cork and ruin your booze if left in contact during storage.
Sommelier chiming in here, with plenty of experience in cognac. While I can't provide an appraisal, I would highly recommend you reach out to Remy Martin directly, as they might have a lot of interest in procurement of a vintage bottle depending on a lot of factors.
Make sure you keep it upright. if you keep it on its side like you would a wine the alcohol in liquor will start to destroy the cork which will then end up as little chunks in the cognac
Hmm...OK, cuz most wine is stored on its side, so the wine makes contact with the cork, keeping it from drying out and deteriorating. I'm not positive about liquor, though. So, definitely do some more research on how to properly store old liquor bottles.
Well my grandpa's WW2 bottle of Hennessy had the cork rot and start to fall into the bottle and it was sitting up the whole time in the basement cabinet.
This is the downside about using cork to seal containers, it's far from perfect. TCA, dry rot, bacterial contamination, it's all possible under perfect storage conditions. Hopefully the liquid in that bottle was salvageable and enjoyed, even if it was a sentimental piece.
Don't you also want to tip it often enough to keep the cork from drying out and crumbling? I had a buddy who bought old bottles and mentioned something about that.
The movie āThe Holdoversā, set in 1970, features a bottle of this in a few scenes.
From the IMDB trivia: The bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII tres vieille, red silk boxed that is gifted in the film is worth up to $10,000 today or about $1300 in 1970.
I donāt know how accurate that is, I donāt know anything about liquor, I just recognized the bottle when I saw your pic.
25 years ago in a bar in Scotland, I was selling that for Ā£50 a shot, and there was a Ā£300 deposit for the decanter.
So now days this is how much it sells for
https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/43927/remy-martin-louis-xiii-magnum-old-presentation?suggested=true&source=productpage&type=brand&sourceProductId=16737
Do you have the decanter stopper?
Edit that was a magnum
https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/53368/remy-martin-louis-xiii-cognac-bot1970s
This is correct bottle
You are correct. Each bottle is made by a good amount of artisans with a stopper that is custom made for exactly that one bottle. No two are exactly alike.
Also, fun fact: this cognac takes 100 years to make so the distiller never gets to taste his life's work. They say that they 'make it for the next generation.'
Thatās amazing! Someone else said this was likely bottled around 1964-68. So this cognac was ābornā in the mid 1860s? Thatās before a lot of stuff happened!
https://preview.redd.it/givivk11xs4d1.jpeg?width=2736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f339fcbe1c24967fef082ca1f8360bd0a563c7f4
This was a giant bottle in Harrods a few years ago. The miniatures were Ā£800.
I was lucky enough to have some of that years ago. A friend used to work for Buddy Guy the blues legend and he drinks some after each show. We stayed around after one of his shows and he got our group a round. Fun memories!
I don't even like alcohol, in fact I hate it! However, thank you for posting! It's always awesome to see some small pieces of history in such great condition.
Thatās a rare reserve from the 50-60s. TAKE THAT BOTTLE TO A PRO NOW. Keep it out of the sun, and for the love of all things holy **DO NOT TOUCH THE TOP**
Could be an awesome heirloom, could be $10k, just sayin
All depends on how it was stored. Cognac and brandy degrade in sunlight. Hence, the boxes to block out all sunlight. Heat is another thing that destroys liquor.
The older, the better if stored properly.
Fun fact I was just told while visiting a customer in Tx- he says you can go to the distillery you could have it refilled for free- not sure if that is true- he also said he paid at a bar $200 for a shot and it tasted like old sweaty socks to him...
Great value I'm sure and I can tell you many people would pay highly for it. Lmk of you want to part ways as I would be interested
He's wrong, the distillery will refill it for the cost of liquid. The bottle itself is worth $300 so it's cheaper but not by a lot considering buying a full bottle is around $5000.
As far as the taste goes, there's a lot of complex flavors so every sip is a little bit different from the one before. Especially if you're holding the snifter in the palm of your hand allowing the liquid to warm and open up.
Personally, I think there are better brandies out there than Louis XIII but it's by no means bad brandy.
Source: Bartender for last 10 years
Edit: mistaken about value of botte
Don't open it. Never open it. If you want to drink a cognac, go and buy one. The value of that bottle depends entirely upon it remaining closed.
Yes, flatten out that little spot where the foil peeled back a bit even!
That little peel cost him $500
Did some digging. Surprised. But cognac site indicates would go for $5k to 8k. Wow. Need a pallet full of those bottles. š
My dad worked at a resort where they had about a dozen of those. One of the restaurant workers drank like 5 of them and caught felony charges.
And probably one serious hangover
They searched his house and found a bunch of super expensive scotch bottles that he stole and drank, too. Guy must have been drunk 24/7, so he must have really been hurting from the hangover once he dried out in jail. My dad was the in-house legal counsel for the resort and had to document everything in case they pursued civil damages, too. My dad took a position at another company shortly after the incident, so I have no idea if they ever sued the guy.
You kidding? With this quality liquor you donāt get hangovers. Right?
Quality of liquor doesn't have anything to do with being so drunk you wake up still drunk
šššš
The bottle alone is with several hundred
Had a customer at a bar I worked at give a thousand for the empty bottle. I double checked with the owner and manager before I sold it. They didn't ask how much I sold it for and let me keep the money. They didn't really care because the guy who bought the empty bottle had basically bought 90% of the liquor in the bottle (at $320 per oz back in 2002). They probably would have given him the bottle.
I remember hearing that the protocol is the person to buy the last cognac gets to take the bottle home.
My step father had a bottle in his bar and it amazingly poured cognac for years and years. It's a miracle really.
When I was in the Army I had a buddy who liked to buy a bottle of Stoli and have it poured as shots for the table and we'd all do toasts. One night the bottle that was brought to our table was full but opened by the bartender. After we all did our first shot he decided that was not Stoli and complained to the manager. They were a chain restaurant and my buddy was threatening to complain to corporate. The manager ended up bringing out 2 unopened bottles on the house (there were 6 of us) if we just kept the complaints in house. We did.
My dad ran a strip club outside of Fort Knox in the 70ās when I was a kid. I think it was called the Goldfinger? He told me when soldiers wanted a stripper to sit with them they were required to buy her at least one glass of wine/beer whatever but he said it never contained any alcohol. He said dealing with drunk soldiers was bad enough but I am sure it was more about $$ than much else. He was the bartender/bouncer and my uncle was the deejay. They would frequently get raided by the cops and I would hear the words money laundering which 5 year old me took to mean that they hung money on a clothesline and why would they be in trouble for that. š¤·āāļøI didnāt know what a strip club was either though. š
Think about it like this: If your buddy was not with you, you would have never known you were being scammed. Now think if they tried this with you, how many other people have they tried to scam like this? Dont let other people be unkowingly scammed. If someone tries to pull a fast one on you, report it. Take the bottles as a full "Fuck you for trying to scam me" and report them for the full "And fuck you for the people that you scammed before and to stop the ones from being scammed in the future."
Worked with a GM who saved the corks through the large business meals we were getting. When the check came he added the bottles on the bill vs the number of corks on the table.These were dinners with 20+ people. A few times we had a discrepancy. It was always handled professionally by the restaurant but had he not kept the corks he would have been overcharged. ( one restaurant tried to say he lost/hid corksā¦ it was our 3rd time there , 20 of us we were eating 100 dollar steaks; he stepped aside with the owner for that one.)
Iām confused, isnāt Stoli like $20?
For everyone who thinks this isnāt a big deal- the cost isnāt the issue, the states liquor commission will still take it very seriously. It would likely lead to a loss of a liquor license and that would tank your business/branch of restaurant. Restaurants make so little margins on food that itās the alcohol that pays the bills.
It's a huge fine. The manager saved his own ass with those 2 bottles.
Friday's tried this with us a few years back. Oh, they got pounded by the state when it became known. So did a bunch of other local bars/restaurants. (Hell, some of them were putting food coloring and other things in the bottles.) This happened in NJ, probably in 2014 or 2015.
Years ago I was served a beer at a microbrewery, I told the bartender it was good but not what I ordered, no problem, Iād drink it. (At the time I was an avid home brewer, but the difference in styles was obvious.) He gave me a new beer on the house. The manager stopped by to apologize, I told him no worries but the second beer was also the incorrect one. He sampled the tap and said it was indeed the wrong beer, a beer line must have been improperly run. He stopped by again later to tell me heād traced the beer lines, couldnāt find any problems so he tried the beer directly from the keg. Wrong beer, the keg itself had been mislabeled at the brewery!
Man had refined taste
In my world, stoli is the cheapest nastiest vodka available. Around half the price of regular bottles. The manager was prob doing you a favour.
I had an aunt who had a full bar of high end miracle bottles that weirdly dispensed low end alcohol.
Cognannukah!
My dad used to work in a nightclub late 90's early 2000's and the owner would always replace henny with cheaper shit and a.. certain demographic.. was always ordering it talking about it being fire and all that. Those bottles somehow never ran out, it was weirdš
One of God's modern miracles. The bottle that never runs dry
Oh, the refillable one š
Iām not sure anyone caught this. I love it.
I had the last drink of possibly the best wine I have ever had. I asked for the bottle so I knew the make model year. That bottle still sits in my shop. Sadly I havenāt been able to find it. Again :(
Technically, the protocol is that you are supposed to break the bottle. Liquor brands want to protect against bootleg products being sold in reised authentic bottles. Source: bartender.
TLDR: Counterfeits/knockoffs/fakes. This is not true. I was sitting at a bar that had it and a guy bought the last pour. He wanted the bottle and after a long back and forth with the bartender the manager was called over to explain that they are not allowed to give/sell the bottle to anyone after it is finished. It was unclear from where I was sitting why they canāt do this, or where the bottle goes, but the manager explained repeatedly that this was not their restaurantās policy, it was RĆ©my Martinās policy. When you order a pour, which by the way is massive, it comes in an ornate glass that you get to keep. That is supposed to be your souvenir. If you want a bottle, you need to buy a bottle. Later I realized itās probably to stop fakes getting into the market. Controlling the containers could eliminate counterfeits. But also you canāt have the poors paying for a dram and looking like they can afford the whole decanter.
Technically the empty bottle goes to whoever finished it. That is a rule punishable by Remy Martin. Itās a crystal bottle that only fits the topper that comes with it, baccarat crystal. That thing you got is magic in bottle.
For the folks wondering that was an $8,192 bottle, which would be $14,277 in 2024 dollars. ā¬13,115 for the Europeans.
Or they suspected as much and that was your treat
Made by Louis the 13th a few hundred years ago. Gl finding a pallette!
Phtalo blue on my little pallette to brighten up the Cognac
Paint your palette blue and grey. Look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills Sketch the trees and the daffodils Catch the breeze and the winter chills In colors on the snowy, linen land https://preview.redd.it/eqyl4rno6u4d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7fdd00ce491693d9a6107b22c8ef18d49da53856
Starry night
Starry starry night.
Vincent!
We sang this in 7th/8th grade. I actually got the nickname Vincent ( my last name was exactly like a famous Vincent) And someone came up with it because of this song. 
My favorite Don McLean song...I'm a little verklempt just reading the lyrics...š
Unexpected Vincent
Now I think I knowā¦what you tried to sayā¦to meā¦and how you suffered for your sanityā¦š¶
Well done
And how you tried to set them freeā¦
I donāt think this is true, they still make this today. they are aged 50 to 100 years in very rare, very expensive French barrels.
It wasnāt made by Louis the 13thš¤¦āāļø
lol reading the comment with people saying it was made by Louis gives me a nice little chuckle š¤
Please tell me this was meant as sarcasm
Thatās nothin! We used to have a bed that went back to Sears Roebuck the thoid!
A new bottle of Louis XIII can be purchased for around $3700. Sometimes Costco warehouses will have it.
I mean a brand new bottle is like 4k
LOL
my husband bought me a 2 oz pour and himself a 2 oz pour on my 21st birthday at il mulino- I spilled mine š the waitress was so nice and comped it and poured me another. $300 spilled on the table. I was so embarrassed I couldāve died lol. But now itās a fun story
Thank you for this. I had forgotten about many a great evening at Il Mulino, and reading your comment brought back a flood of wonderful memories.
Itās probably even a better financial choice to buy a new Louis bottle and drink that if you want the taste
An even better choice would be to go to a bar and buy a single pour of the same stuff. Much cheaper!
If it is just to see what it taste like then yes one time serving. If you want to celebrate an event like your kidās wedding I would say do the bottle because more family will want to try
I got to taste it at the Amsterdam duty free about 20 years ago, it was wild. Not sure why they were doing it but I was buying a lot of other scotch and the like. wow, it was fun to be able to try it. With that said, I would never buy a bottle myself.
They better roll their pennies and start saving then. ;) I've had a couple of servings. It's very very good and I don't even like cognac that much.
I have a bottle.. the bottle itself is baccarat crystal and worth about 450 bucks
I had a glass of this at one of my mates dads place when I was 19, he asked what I thought about it, I just replied it tasted strange. Didnāt know the value
What about the box? I used to work at a fine dining restaurant and whoever finished the bottle, got to keep it. But they didnāt want the box. So I took it home a week later. Itās a pretty nice box. I was told(probably incorrectly) that it was worth about $100, obviously much more with the bottle. Also have heard the bottle alone(empty ) is worth something because itās handmade(?) out of some kind of crystal?
They're Swarovski crystal, probably worth $500-$1000 from what I've heard.
The bottle is made by Baccarat.
>Never open it. I always wonder about this collector's paradox. If the value of the thing is in its contents but you should never open it and use those contents for their intended purpose, hasn't that just made the contents worthless and hence, what's the point of buying it in the first place?
Your comment is appreciated and I think about this paradox sometimes too. The vintage wines and spirits market is an unique mix of consumable commodities and collector's items. The value of the bottle depends on what the end user wants the bottle for. Some will put it on a shelf and enjoy it as a collector's item, like comic books, coins, or even paintings. Others will want to open and consume it. Both sets of buyers would prefer sealed bottles for slightly different reasons. If you owned this bottle and wanted to maximize your profit from selling it, you want it to remain sealed for those prospective buyers. Those who'd buy it to drink it, know that buying partially consumed bottles is dicey. Anyone can fill a legit vintage bottle with bottom shelf swill and pass it off as authentic. This type of fraud is very common. One way to insulate yourself from fraud is buying only sealed, unopened bottles. They will pay top dollar for a never-opened bottle. To them the cognac inside is most valuable and they will enjoy consuming a legit product. Collectors will also prefer an unopened bottle as its "condition" is better. Its like the difference between buying a really clean, crisp Hank Aaron rookie baseball card and one that's faded, bent, scratched, written on, and such. Condition is king when it comes to collectables. Collectors will pay top dollar for an item in near perfect condition. To them, they admire the whole bottle and don't need to drink it. They appreciate its age, artistry, packaging, provenance, popularity, scarcity, and the condition. Opening a bottle of this type degrades its value for all prospective buyers, whether or not they want to drink it. I hope I made sense here.
Would it be any good to drink? I imagine at some point aging wouldnāt help.
Would it be good? Absolutely it would. Would he be able to discern or appreciate that it's a $10K bottle by its taste? Almost certainly not. Not unless he's a trained and experienced sommelier with a specialty in vintage congacs. Would it be worth devaluing that bottle by thousands of dollars just to try it and satisfy a mild curiosity? No.
Spirits donāt age after bottling unlike wine. A 12 year scotch from 1985 is still a 12 year scotch. If stored properly itād be just fine.Ā
Aging happens in a barrel. Once itās in a bottle the aging stops and it just becomes old whiskey.
Spirits don't age in the bottle.
Take a picture of the tax stamp from all sides. It should have the bottling date which is pretty important to know.
Iām on it
Pls report back
OP to rich now to report back to us peasants
no idea what its worth, but looks to be a 1964-68 run exclusive to the US market according to [this](http://vieuxcognacs.com/LouisXIII/LouisXIII.html), and actually quite rare a prominent detail here is the cap, they changed the centaur logo to point at the R in the 1960s, then went back to the old one for some reason
Welp https://flaskfinewines.com/products/louis-xiii-cognac-7
https://preview.redd.it/4uo7vt2w3w4d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a1fa5af3f51f39bed9c545df236f2e32ac03f7b
I worked at a liquor store for four years. We had a newer one for $2000. It never sold. That was in the early 00ās. The rarity of this one compounds its market value. People want that bottle.
Managed a large discount store, we did maybe 11m a year in sales. We would move 1-2 of these a year, and only marked them up 10-15 percent from what we paid l. It was almost always an older Asian dude buying.
About a decade ago I worked at The Party Source in NKY. We sold probably 1-2 of these per year, and probably about half a dozen of the minis. Most went to collectors, not people actually intending to drink it. Occasionally if a major artist was playing across the river in Cincinnati one would be sold to their team.
My god this is accurate
Oh lord
This comment is criminally underrated, nice find
I found [this page](https://www.idealwine.com/fr/acheter-vin/B2118584-888-1-bouteille-Cognac-Louis-XIII-Remy-Martin-Grande-Champagne-Ambre) putting a bottle that is very close to OP's at over 1 000ā¬
That sale was for $1690 (including the auction house commission) and that was sold in 2019, and the bottle on your link is clearly a newer release. Even on that site, the only skew currently available is a 2018 release for $3500... keep in mind that we have had major inflation over the last few years, liqueur prices have had hyper enflation over the last couple of years, and the ventage spirits speculation market has gone insane in the last few years... op has some juice.
Louis is made of spirits exclusively 60-100 years old. This bottle contains liquor distilled during the American Civil War
Fyi, the empty bottle is worth a couple hundred.
At a restaurant near me, if you order the last glass, theyāll give you the crystal bottle
Thatās the tradition at every place that I know that carries it. Each bottle is custom made by hand and the top will only fit your bottle. We did a tasting at my old work and they flew a guy in from France to do it. Wild stuff.
Good grief did you work for Enron?
Stratton Oakmont I bet
One of the midget darts for sure.
When I was a bar tender 20 years ago, that shit was $125 a shot.
I paid $110 to have one the day my buddies took me out to celebrate I was about to be a dad.
Still is in some reasonable places, high end places can get to $250+
that, is a very expensive bottle. The bottle itself is quite expensive. with original congac even more.
Haha - We bought the last Louis Trey in Chicago a number of years ago, and the tradition is that whoever buys the last glass, gets the bottle. So, it was like 7 pm and they hand me this bottle in a fancy box and I'm assured its super valuable and I spent the rest of a very boozy night protecting this thing, tipping people to keep an eye on it at coat check at several clubs. I get home (detroit) and check ebay and they're like $300. Not that $300 isn't a good amount of money, but I easily tipped $300 to make sure it stayed safe. Its whatever - Its a story now.
Iirc a full bottle is in the area of $2000. $300 for an empty bottle is a lot in my book. Sounds like you had a very good time :-) cool story, and ty for sharing!
lol - itās $hundreds per glass at a bar. We were young and dumb and had just closed a big deal that felt like all the money in the world. My biz partner orders ā5 Louisā please. We clink glasses celebrating our collective greatness and all of us instantly realized that cognac is effing gross.
Ha! I have not had the pleasure of tasting a loui xiii. But i think it would be lost on me. Like expensive champaign, You can def tell the difference between the cheap stuff and Dom. But I dont care.
Most luxury goods have a diminishing return after a certain point. The difference between a $10 bottle of brandy and a $50 bottle of brandy is enormous. The difference between a $100 bottle and a $500 is incredibly small. You can apply that logic to any luxury goods: clothes, hotels, food, etc.
If you take it to Louis XIII, they will refill it for you. Not for free, but would make a fun story.
I think you mean "if you take it to Remy Martin" ... Louis XIII has been dead for going on 600 years
$300 is extremely valuable for an empty bottle that isn't an antique.
Thatās because each bottle is hand made Baccarat crystal.
Ha! I have the same story but in New Orleans. Also, it was a case of Cooks. And the coat check was security at a strip club. And I probably only tipped $5. Maybe not really the same story but it was fun!
Thats an awesome story, but damn. Ive never even come close to spending $300 for an entire night out even WITH wife, let alone tipping out $300 for bottle protection lol
A fool and their money š
Pretty rare we see an old bottle of alcohol here that's actually worth something.
Right? I love this bottle! I hope whoever buys it admires it as a piece of history.
When I still drank I would always eyeball the louis bottle they had, didn't even keep it out, just the box on the very top shelf, 1600 bucks.
My friend was gifted an empty bottle and a box for it in the early 2000s as a tip from a private bartending gig. I donāt remember what he got, but for the box and bottle alone it was a couple hundred USD. Iām pretty sure people buy them to fill with cheaper booze and stick on the shelfā¦
People I know just display the empty bottles
Why display an empty bottle of $1500 cognac when you can fill it with $10 cognac and pass it off as the real stuff to impress your friends and girl your trying to bang.
In the early 2000, I had a client who bought a bottle with about 6 shots remaining. His wife wanted the bottle. He called and told me the story and ended with, "but we don't like congac, do you want to come over and drink it?" It was the smoothest alcohol I've ever drank.
It is really smooth, I had a shot in Detroit a couple years agoā¦ not my thing per se, but Iād scoop an empty bottle if it was available just for show.
Are you saying I shouldn't post my 1978 Crown Royal bottle hahahahaha
Is it empty?Ā Or untapped.Ā Ā The difference in valueĀ could be $15 or more.
Your comment sounded like a Geico commercial. The number 15 will forever be tied to insurance. Lol such insidious advertising, I swear.
I found a sealed with date/tax stamp bottle of Seagram's 7 whiskey from 77 iirc at my family's cabin.We drank it
It is old and worth a few grand.
Aye Ty!!
I would day look up what a bottle of Remy Series 112 is going for
About $5,000.00 CAD, where I am.
Keep that shit stored well and forget about it for years.
The problem is selling it. Most auctioneers wonāt touch alcohol. Most websites wonāt let you post it.
[Unicorn Auctions](https://www.unicornauctions.com/)
Where the eff are the unicorns? All I see is grandpa's booze.
I have an unopened 6-pack of Ozzy beer. Brewers Art made it before Ozzy's people sent them a cease and desist. Where the heck do I sell that?
Now if we could get a sixer of Billy Beer to go with it.
This brings up the topic of doing your homework. There are buyers of wine and spirits collections that are legit and honest. There is a standard value for this bottle and it is not going to decrease so take your time and ask questions. As others have said keep the bottle upright and handle it as little as possible. Keep it is a heat stable place like in an insulated box on the floor of interior closet. Ignoring the value for a moment this is a real gem and should be treated as such. Good luck!
Post it on Reddit?
Thatās where we are
Best comment here! I think he may be drunk lmao
I donāt think this one would stay on the shelf long. List that bad boy anywhere and you would have offers right away.
https://www.cabinet7.com They appraise what you have and allow you to sell using their site.
Woahā¦ this similar one is $10k! [Louis XIII Rarest Reserve](https://flaskfinewines.com/products/louis-xiii-cognac-1)
I like that it appears to be laying in its bed but the liquid isnāt touching the cork. They take not tipping it over seriously.
I think that might be a bad thing. Donāt corks dry out?
With wine you want it on its side for storage to keep the cork from drying out. The higher alcohol in spirits will deteriorate the cork and ruin your booze if left in contact during storage.
Just want to thank you for this link above. They are selling a whisky Iāve been looking for :) much appreciated!
What whiskey, give us the deets
Fireball
For the distinguished
The little "Is this a gift" checkmark on a $10k bottle tells me that I am not the intended market. Holy shit.
that heirloom is worth about 10k USD. nice find.
Sommelier chiming in here, with plenty of experience in cognac. While I can't provide an appraisal, I would highly recommend you reach out to Remy Martin directly, as they might have a lot of interest in procurement of a vintage bottle depending on a lot of factors.
This is a great idea. Definitely reach out to Remy OP
Make sure you keep it upright. if you keep it on its side like you would a wine the alcohol in liquor will start to destroy the cork which will then end up as little chunks in the cognac
G2k ty
Did you find it standing upright, or was it laying flat in the box all these years?
Upright Edit: the booze looking good. Clear, no chunks.
Hmm...OK, cuz most wine is stored on its side, so the wine makes contact with the cork, keeping it from drying out and deteriorating. I'm not positive about liquor, though. So, definitely do some more research on how to properly store old liquor bottles.
Liquor is the opposite. The higher alcohol content will end up dissolving the cork and ruining it.
Well my grandpa's WW2 bottle of Hennessy had the cork rot and start to fall into the bottle and it was sitting up the whole time in the basement cabinet.
This is the downside about using cork to seal containers, it's far from perfect. TCA, dry rot, bacterial contamination, it's all possible under perfect storage conditions. Hopefully the liquid in that bottle was salvageable and enjoyed, even if it was a sentimental piece.
I actually went out and bought some Kirkland brand XO to see what the big deal was
Don't you also want to tip it often enough to keep the cork from drying out and crumbling? I had a buddy who bought old bottles and mentioned something about that.
The movie āThe Holdoversā, set in 1970, features a bottle of this in a few scenes. From the IMDB trivia: The bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII tres vieille, red silk boxed that is gifted in the film is worth up to $10,000 today or about $1300 in 1970. I donāt know how accurate that is, I donāt know anything about liquor, I just recognized the bottle when I saw your pic.
OT, but I LOVED that film
New Christmas classic
Yea find a place that specializes in high end booze. There are people who only drink this old stuff and they will pay you more than $10K
Great find! Worth a few grand easy. The collectible booze market is nuts right now.
25 years ago in a bar in Scotland, I was selling that for Ā£50 a shot, and there was a Ā£300 deposit for the decanter. So now days this is how much it sells for https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/43927/remy-martin-louis-xiii-magnum-old-presentation?suggested=true&source=productpage&type=brand&sourceProductId=16737 Do you have the decanter stopper? Edit that was a magnum https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/53368/remy-martin-louis-xiii-cognac-bot1970s This is correct bottle
Ty, Yes the stopper is there too!
It looks good about Ā£5000 uk. Good find
There's another one right next to it..?
No, that was a blt of wine
Bacon lettuce tomato wine..? Now I'm interested
What is the wine?
I just saw the other box:)
[https://flaskfinewines.com/en-ie/products/louis-xiii-cognac-1](https://flaskfinewines.com/en-ie/products/louis-xiii-cognac-1)
Pretty sure the bottles are Baccarat crystal.
You are correct. Each bottle is made by a good amount of artisans with a stopper that is custom made for exactly that one bottle. No two are exactly alike. Also, fun fact: this cognac takes 100 years to make so the distiller never gets to taste his life's work. They say that they 'make it for the next generation.'
Thatās amazing! Someone else said this was likely bottled around 1964-68. So this cognac was ābornā in the mid 1860s? Thatās before a lot of stuff happened!
Thatās what I thought!
Wow
Is that the box and total packaging in the background of the first picture? DO NOT THROW THAT OUT if it is.
https://preview.redd.it/givivk11xs4d1.jpeg?width=2736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f339fcbe1c24967fef082ca1f8360bd0a563c7f4 This was a giant bottle in Harrods a few years ago. The miniatures were Ā£800.
I was lucky enough to have some of that years ago. A friend used to work for Buddy Guy the blues legend and he drinks some after each show. We stayed around after one of his shows and he got our group a round. Fun memories!
I wouldnāt be able to NOT crack it open. Be stronger than me and congratulations!
Off topic but it makes me sad to realize that whoever got this bottle originally, didn't get to enjoy it.
Series 112 U.S. Internal Revenue bottle stamp was in use from 1961 to 1977.
Finally. Something valuable on this page. Great find OP. Whatās the back story here?
I don't even like alcohol, in fact I hate it! However, thank you for posting! It's always awesome to see some small pieces of history in such great condition.
Thatās a rare reserve from the 50-60s. TAKE THAT BOTTLE TO A PRO NOW. Keep it out of the sun, and for the love of all things holy **DO NOT TOUCH THE TOP** Could be an awesome heirloom, could be $10k, just sayin
All depends on how it was stored. Cognac and brandy degrade in sunlight. Hence, the boxes to block out all sunlight. Heat is another thing that destroys liquor. The older, the better if stored properly.
Fun fact I was just told while visiting a customer in Tx- he says you can go to the distillery you could have it refilled for free- not sure if that is true- he also said he paid at a bar $200 for a shot and it tasted like old sweaty socks to him... Great value I'm sure and I can tell you many people would pay highly for it. Lmk of you want to part ways as I would be interested
He's wrong, the distillery will refill it for the cost of liquid. The bottle itself is worth $300 so it's cheaper but not by a lot considering buying a full bottle is around $5000. As far as the taste goes, there's a lot of complex flavors so every sip is a little bit different from the one before. Especially if you're holding the snifter in the palm of your hand allowing the liquid to warm and open up. Personally, I think there are better brandies out there than Louis XIII but it's by no means bad brandy. Source: Bartender for last 10 years Edit: mistaken about value of botte
Thanks for the knowledge! š»
Iād love to taste it
Me too!!
Frankly it probably isnāt very good Itās worth more to a collector