Dusties: Bottled History

Jake Knudsen combines his love of history with his chosen profession to continue our student series, with his (not late) post, Dusties: Bottled History.

I am a Liberal Studies major with a Theater minor. I currently work in the liquor industry and will be making my career in that industry, so one can definitely wonder how I ended up in an archaeology class. I stumbled across archaeology entirely by accident when taking a class with a teacher I knew I enjoyed from a previous semester. Now I am on my sixth anthropology class and third archaeology class. Since taking these classes, I have been able to view my current career choice in an interesting, archaeological light that has exposed the negative side of bottle trading taking place daily. This really shows some of the incredibly poor ethics within artifact finding.

Let me preface the following statement with this: Being in the liquor industry, I have joined some of these bottle trading groups to keep up with current market trends and to see what the popular selling items are at the moment. There are several groups on Facebook that condone the sale and trade of alcoholic beverages, which is remarkably illegal but is also not allowed on Facebook. I do not buy or sell on any of these groups. That being said, on these websites, I have seen some INCREDIBLE bottles chock full of some incredible history. Commonly referred to as “dusties” these bottles are anywhere from 30 to 130 years old. I have seen bottles that have been recently discontinued and bottles that are pre-prohibition. I have even seen bottles that were from the early era of the George Washington Distillery.

People know that these “dusties” are worth a large amount of money and do not hesitate to sell them or auction them off for high dollar. I’ve seen people trade pre-prohibition bottles for cars. It breaks my heart that an industry full of such rich history also faces same the difficulties and unethical practices historians and archaeologists face on a daily basis, but unfortunately this will be a problem until people all start to take action together. Here are a few resources you can contact if you find bottles or archaeological artifacts that pertain to the liquor industry or if you are searching for information to help prevent the “secondary market trading” and the unethical practices faced worldwide. If you find artifacts that you have questions about, contact the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, also known as DISCUS. DISCUS has been around for 75 years and has one of the largest, most thorough histories of distilled spirits in the United States. You can also contact the Kentucky Distillers Association, also known as the KDA. The staff at the KDA redefines professionalism and respect for all things bourbon and bourbon history and would be able to help with identifying artifacts and potential ground breaking discoveries.

Practice good ethics when you are out in the field. By taking artifacts and pieces of history away from their proper resting place, you have the possibility of leaving holes in the timeline. Practice good ethics and when in doubt, if you are not sure if something important- JUST ASK!