Pappy Time

Waiting for Pappy Van Winkle Is America’s Newest Favorite Pastime

This is the line for a raffle.
This is the line for a raffle. Photo: Js Liquors Cheese/Twitter

By now, all bourbon drinkers and all those who may happen to be within earshot are sick and tired of explaining the cult of Pappy Van Winkle, that ultralimited annual release of highly coveted 5-year, 20-year, and 23-year versions that people love to drink and others love to resell at a 1,600 percent markup. In any event, whereas last year’s lines on so-called “Pappy Days” were long, drab, and uniformly dismal, this year they were slightly more colorful, only vaguely dismal, and still quite long.

Liquor stores are getting better, in the meantime, at turning Pappy Day into an event. One Massachusetts chain offered bottles at MSRP, and if that wasn’t attractive enough, it served bourbon doughnuts and hot coffee to those in line. “We had some grills out here and we were cooking sausage,” said one line-waiter in Alabama. Here are some dispatches from those making the most of being on the Pappy front.

Pappy Van Winkle day in Alabama. I heard of a fight at one store and people camping out for 15 hours at another.— Raegan (@RaeganVargas) November 13, 2014

Nevr would I imagine waiting outside a liquor store 4 a certain ‘pappy van winkle’. 4 my husband. In the cold. This is love. @Aqshipley 💙— Cammie Shipley (@cammiejfitness) November 22, 2014

.@CorriAnne80 here’s a line for Pappy Van Winkle. Rumored Hawthorne Liquor store has it. pic.twitter.com/I251WKPoAw— J Grawrock (@jgrawrock) November 17, 2014

In line for dat pappy at @GreensBeer Cheers! pic.twitter.com/WUGuSeMJ5E— Logan Young (@LoganYou92) November 16, 2014


Related: How Pappy Van Winkle Became King of the Whiskeys
Related: Nine Amazing American Whiskeys That Aren’t Pappy Van Winkle

Waiting for Pappy Van Winkle Is America’s Newest Favorite Pastime