Collector Details
The Sterling Silver bottle was released in 1991 by Ferdie Falk, then co-owner of Ancient Age Distillery (now Buffalo Trace Distillery). Falk commissioned silversmith Kirk-Stieff who undertook the difficult task of casting the recognizable Blanton’s bottle in 100% sterling silver with a 24-karet gold-plated stopper. Designed as a presentation piece, the edition became one of the defining objects in the history of Blanton’s collecting.
150 Individually numbered bottles were produced. 100 of these were sent to Japan, were many were given to Japanese liquor store retailers as gifts. The remaining 50 bottles remained in the US, where they were also gifted to friends of the distillery. Buffalo Trace (then Ancient Age) did make the Sterling bottle available to the public for a brief period as shown in the photo below.
The complete presentation included a triangular velvet-covered box, a glass dome, a gray velvet bag, white gloves, and a commemorative letter. Some hang tags misspell “sterling” as “starling.” The empty silver bottle weighs 25.5 ounces empty, although bottles were filled with bourbon.
