Meet Steve Birer, Director of Spirits Auctions

We’re thrilled to announce the next chapter in our auction journey—K&L Spirits Auctions, launching on May 1! We’ve spent the last 15 years refining our fine wine auction platform, focusing on curation and bringing compelling lots to the most heavily visited online retail and auction site in the U.S. Now we’re applying that experience to collectible spirits.

With the country’s largest audience for rare bottles, our new spirits auctions provide a robust marketplace for seasoned enthusiasts and newcomers alike. As a consignor, you’ll benefit from the industry's most widely visited retail + auction site on the web, where more eyes on your lot translate into higher hammer values.

If you’re looking to take advantage of the demand for rare and collectible spirits, our platform can help maximize your returns. Whether you have a long-standing whiskey collection or just a few prized bottles, we’ll provide an expert evaluation and a path to successful consignment. To learn more, contact our Spirits Auction Director, Steven Birer at [email protected].

Get to know Steve with our Q&A below!

What was your journey to spirits?

I grew up in a wine household. There were a few bottles of spirits—Scotch and vodka, Grand Marnier, Drambuie, Benedictine, and Chartreuse, but mostly oddball stuff like Peter (Cherry) Heering, Slivovitz, and an honest-to-goodness bottle of mezcal with a worm in it! It wasn’t until I started my first job after college and I started working with a guy who was into martinis that I strayed from wine. We drank martinis because no one else did… at least not until the martini craze that started with Barnaby Conrad III’s book The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic. Then I had to switch to something that no one else was drinking, which at that time was bourbon. But even though bourbon eventually had its own renaissance, I knew better than to switch this time.

How did you get into spirits collecting?

Pretty much by accident. When I started drinking bourbon, there was no need to collect. Anything you wanted was on the store shelves, so why collect? I bought my first bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 at Costco for $149.00. I thought it was pretty good, so when I finished the bottle, I went back and bought another one. And then another. I’d walk over to BevMo from Costco and buy a Rittenhouse 21 Rye (and eventually 23 Rye and 25 Rye). Then one day I went to Costco and there was no more Pappy 23. And there was no more Rittenhouse. The bourbon craze had begun. So I decided that I needed to get my hands on whatever Pappy I could so that I could drink it when I could no longer get my hands on it. But I didn’t stop there. I built a hoard of anything that I thought was good. And any time I bought something, I bought two of them, just in case it became a collector’s item. Well, not every time. I didn’t really care much for Michter’s 25 Rye the first time I had it; had I bought a second bottle I guess I could have bought a car with it. Colonel E.H. Taylor Tornado Surviving Bourbon? Meh. Twisted Spoke 16 Bourbon and Black Maple Hill 23 Rye? Loved them and still can’t figure out why I didn’t load up on them. One day I turned around and realized that I had hundreds of bottles that were unopened… and I realized that I couldn’t bring myself to open them. I might have paid a few hundred dollars for a bottle, but when it’s worth thousands of dollars it gets tougher to justify drinking it.

So what did you do?

I sold most of them—in one transaction to a private buyer. And I’m sure I left a lot of money on the table, but it felt good. As the character Tyler Durden says in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club: “The things you own end up owning you.”

And now?

I’m back to exploring again. Armagnac. Chartreuse. Vermouth. And yes, bourbon and rye.

You say you sold your collection privately… why didn’t you use an auction house?

I certainly spoke to the auction houses, but I never got a great feeling from them. They were transactional. They didn’t know the product; they didn’t love what was in the bottles that I collected. They weren’t collectors themselves.

So how are K&L’s Spirit Auctions different?

I’m sure it sounds lame, but I get excited when I see a new list. I want to talk to the consignors and hear their stories. How did they get their bottles? Why do they want to trade out of them? Seeing bottles consigned to us that K&L’s own David Othenin-Girard and Dave Driscoll discovered years ago is pretty remarkable. Forget stocks, people should have invested in a portfolio of K&L’s barrel exclusives through the years! Everyone involved in K&L’s spirit auctions has spirits in their DNA and holds the proper respect for the bottles that are consigned to us. We also get to leverage off an infrastructure that has supported K&L’s wine auctions for decades. While the spirits auction may be a new line of business for K&L, we’re a bunch of experienced individuals using time-tested and optimized software and logistics processes. One last difference: while most auctions start at one time and end at another, our lots are staggered throughout the day. This enables bidders to focus on one lot at a time, which in our experience has led to optimal pricing for bottles.

Anything else?

Yes. Our auctions will run two times a month. They will start on the 1st and 15th of each month and run for 7 days. Staggered lot beginnings and endings. For more information, people interested in consigning or bidding in our auctions should go to our auctions website or reach out to me.