Understanding the Secondary Market: Decoding DSPs and Tax Strips
"To the casual drinker, a label is just branding. To the collector, a label is a treasure map."
When you are spending significant money on rare bottles, you need to know exactly what is inside the glass. In American whiskey specifically, the label often tells a story that the brand marketing tries to hide. Here is how to read a whiskey bottle like a pro.
The DSP Number: The DNA of Whiskey
In the United States, every distillery is assigned a Distilled Spirits Plant (DSP) number. This is crucial because many brands do not distill their own whiskey; they buy it from large industrial producers (like MGP in Indiana) and bottle it under their own name.
If you want to know who actually made your whiskey, look for the DSP number on the back or bottom of the label:
The Heaven Hill Distillery (Bernheim).
The current Buffalo Trace Distillery.
MGP (Midwest Grain Products). A massive amount of famous rye whiskey comes from here.
The legendary Stitzel-Weller distillery (closed in 1992). If you find a dusty bottle with this number, you have struck gold.
Bottled in Bond: The Gold Standard of Quality
Passed in 1897, the Bottled-in-Bond Act was the first consumer protection law for food/drink in the US. For a whiskey to be "Bottled in Bond," it must be:
Distilled by one distiller at one distillery in one distillation season (Jan-Jun or July-Dec).
Aged for at least 4 years in a federally bonded warehouse.
Bottled at exactly 100 proof.
Why Collectors Care
Bonded whiskey removes the guesswork. You know exactly how old it is (minimum) and you know it hasn't been tampered with. Vintage Bonded whiskeys are highly sought after because they represent the purest expression of that distillery's character at that time.
Tax Strips: Dating a Bottle
Before 1985, bottles of spirits in the US were sealed with a tax strip—a piece of paper going over the cap.
Green Strips
Used for Bottled in Bond whiskey.
Red Strips
Used for non-Bonded spirits.
Dates
Prior to 1982, the tax strip would often explicitly print the year of distillation and the year of bottling. If you find a bottle with a tax strip, you are almost certainly looking at a "Dusty" (vintage) bottle with significant value.
Glass Codes
On the bottom of almost every whiskey bottle is a molded code in the glass. It often looks like a 2-digit number (e.g., "74"). On vintage bottles, this often corresponds to the year the glass bottle was manufactured.
Pro Tip: Authentication Check
If you are looking at a bottle of Old Grand-Dad that claims to be from the 1970s, flip it over. If the glass code says "92", you are looking at a fake or a misunderstanding. The glass cannot be newer than the whiskey.
Knowledge is Power
The more you understand the history printed on the label, the better choices you will make in the auction house.
