CRYSTAL DECANTER

Jim Beam is the best selling brand of bourbon whiskey in the world, producing several varieties of bourbon and whiskey. Seven family generations operated the distillery since it was founded in 1795 and in 1933 it was given its current “Jim Beam” name. Jim Beam has a long history and since 1795, has been developing a quality product with a reputation that precedes itself.

The goal for any company in an industry such as this is to make their products loved by generations of people. Therefore, there is a certain consistency that must occur to ensure that throughout each generation, there is an element of the product that they each can relate to. As Jim Beam developed their brand and their reputation their consistency remained in the taste of their drink. So the only thing that they changed was the physical appearance of their bottles, logos, etc. As they changed, each bottle and each design that reached its end didn’t become just another relic of our past, but a piece of classic memorabilia.

And every now and then, Jim Beam would be intentional about this desire for memorabilia and release a limited edition or special collectible edition. They developed special edition series and a wide range of bottles and decanters. Just to name a few, they had the armed forces series, beam award series, famous people series, club series, and more and subject matters ranged from Paul Bunyan to Corvettes. Not only did these decanters vary in subject matter, but depending on the particular subject their shape would also be drastically different. Sometimes designed as replicas of buildings, animals, etc.

Jim Beam released their most significant collection of bottles known as the “Beam Collector Editions”. Running from 1966 to 1986, it was their longest running collections. Because bottle/decanter collecting was big around that time, these collector editions were fairly popular. And fortunately, for these avid collectors, they released a new “collection” under this title, each year during this collection. One collection was a series of four bottles. Each was covered in a felt like material and had a painting on it by a famous artist. The casing for these decanters was colorful and had a clear front, allowing you to see each painting. Though the drink inside these decanters was high quality, the decanter itself was not, and still isn’t worth much to this day. These collectible decanters were used as tool by storeowners to help push the product and get more sales.

You can look online today but finding collectible decanters will prove to be a challenging task. There’s not too much information out there and the few I did find were being auctioned off on eBay. This could be a reflection of the times seeing as bottle/decanter collecting isn’t much of a hobby anymore. Usually, something that’s not that valuable isn’t really worth looking for anyways unless you’re a truly passionate collector.