A rare bottle of bourbon — with deep ties to the Chicago Blackhawks, the Wirtz family and historic distillers — sold last month for $71,375 through Ravenswood-based auction house Unicorn Auctions. But it wasn’t even the priciest transaction for the rare spirit.
Two prior auctions of the Very Very Old Fitzgerald 18 Year bourbon fetched for $106,500 in October and $100,125 in May 2024, amounts that include taxes and buyers’ premium.
The 121 proof bottles, distilled in the 1950s by Stitzel-Weller exclusively for the Wirtz family, resurfaced recently after decades of dormancy, touching few hands since their procurement. It represents an early example of craft production truly made for friends and family.
Only a handful of the so-called Blackhawk bourbons are believed to be in circulation today.
The buyer and seller from December’s auction separately declined interviews, citing privacy concerns.
The trio of Blackhawk bottle auctions cement the spirit’s top shelf position among alternative assets while highlighting the appeal of sellers and buyers flocking to Unicorn.
“We’ve grown to well over 100,000 customers now, almost entirely organically,” Phil Mikhaylov, co-founder of Unicorn Auctions, said. “It’s largely driven by word of mouth and referrals.”
Since launching in 2020, with co-founder Cody Modeer, the auction house has eclipsed $200 million in sales and sold more than 500,000 bottles.
And despite more people shifting away from alcohol since the pandemic, Unicorn’s business is booming.
Against the grain
The company sells between 4,000 and 6,000 bottles per week, primarily through its online app, and generates more than $1 million in weekly revenue, according to Mikhaylov.
A third of the purchases are picked up locally, a third are delivered to customers across the country and the remaining third of its inventory is held at its 70,000-square-foot temperature and humidity-controlled vault in Chicago, home to more than $100 million worth of product.
Unicorn operates on consignment so it’s neither an owner, distributor or retailer — a differentiation that allows them to legally sell and ship alcohol in the U.S. through their digital marketplace. The company is likely the largest of its kind in the country.
Unicorn employs about 80 people at its 25,000-square-foot headquarters, from software engineers, app developers, data analysts to logistics specialists, who map out everything from last mile deliveries to optimal routes for stocking inventory within its enormous vault.
“We built all our own stuff,” Mikhaylov said.
At the company’s warehouse, he pointed to a heat map display disclosing bids in real time for a wine auction that was set to close in four hours, as well as an ongoing spirits auction.
“I love looking at this,” he said. “This is freaking epic. We’re able to see live where bids are coming from, what they’re bidding on. This is something that the industry doesn’t have. Brands have no visibility into who the end consumer is or where they are.”
Auctions start on Sunday and last one week. Unicorn handles the intake, bar coding, professional photography and product descriptions, which are crafted by spirit experts. Sellers are paid a week after the auction closes, with Unicorn taking a 5% commission per sale. A $5 processing fee per bottle listing is also charged.
Taster’s Choice
A tasting experience this month at a Blackhawks game drew a $222,250 winning bid, during an October auction as part of the team’s centennial celebration.
It includes a tasting of the 18-year Blackhawk bourbon, pre-Prohibition bottle pours and other special Van Winkle varieties at a speakeasy inside the United Center, hosted by Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery President Julian Van Winkle III and Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz.
Proceeds from sale were part of a larger Unicorn lot auction that included signed Blackhawks player jerseys and other sports memorabilia, which raised more than $425,000 for the Chicago Blackhawks Foundation.
“This bottle is more than a rare whiskey,” Wirtz said in a statement. “It’s a piece of our family and team’s shared history, both in the world of hockey and spirits industry.”
While the Wirtz family is best known as the ownership group of the Blackhawks since 1954, their widespread business portfolio in the liquor industry built the family’s wealth.
Chicago-based Wirtz Beverage Group, established in 1945 by patriarch Arthur Wirtz, merged with the Charmer Sunbelt Group in 2016 to form Breakthru Beverage Group, one of the world’s largest wholesale alcohol distributors with over $8.5 billion in annual sales, according to its website.
At the time of the Blackhawk bottling, Van Winkle was 20 years old. He fondly remembers a sales trip to Chicago around that time with his dad, Pappy, and meeting Bill Wirtz, then chairman of Wirtz Beverage Group. The younger Van Winkle also attended his first NHL game that trip at old Chicago Stadium.
“This will be exciting for me to taste some 1969 history from that bottle,” Van Winkle said in an emailed statement. “I believe this bottle to be one of the most special bottles of Kentucky bourbon on the planet.”
Finding the right mix
The auction house has closed some eye-popping transactions over the years, including:
- $250,000 for the Yamazaki 55-year single malt Japanese whisky, the oldest released under the label and bottled by the House of Suntory.
- $153,000 for Buffalo Trace Old Fashioned Copper 1982 Bourbon, the 6-liter bottle is the most expensive bourbon sold on the platform. Listing details said the largest spirit that can be legally packaged and distributed in the U.S. is 1.8 liters, but Buffalo Trace’s workaround was exclusively launching it internationally.
- $107,000 for Van Winkle 18 Year Special Reserve Bourbon ‘Binny’s’ Private Barrel Selection, also known as Binny’s 18. It was distilled in June 1985 and chosen by Niles-based Binny’s Beverage Depot in 2003.
Bourbon accounts for about 65% of sales, with its auctions generating about 100,000 bids per week.
“Bourbon is having a moment right now,” Mikhaylov said.
Brian Rosen, managing partner of InvestBev Capital, said the category’s value is in the aging process, rarity and specialization. The vast majority of InvestBev Capital’s $500 million in assets under management are tied to barreled whiskey distillates.
“The market and these trades are good for bourbon,” Rosen said. “Bourbon is a rare asset that increases in value as time passes.”
Unicorn’s fastest-growing category is tequila, specifically non-additive versions and those made by small batch producers. Vintage spirits are also making a comeback, Mikhaylov said.
In another trend buster, about 70% of its customers this year are Generation Z and millennials — groups that have shunned alcohol more than their predecessors. Clients run the gamut from elite collectors to newbies.
Pricey bottle auctions tend to grab headlines, but a few years ago, Unicorn started making a concerted effort to target mass consumers, not whales.
The vast majority of its transactions — more than 100,000 — are under $100.
“We used to have these curated auctions with ultra expensive bottles,” Mikhaylov said. “But what I realized is that’s the antithesis of what we wanted to be.”