Buy Jim Beam Choice Bourbon Australia – Beam's Choice Figural Decanters, 8 and 10 Year Old

Jim Beam beam's choice is a bottling and a decanter programme at once: Kentucky straight bourbon at 40%, 8 or 10 years old, a long age statement for a mass-market bottling of that era. The decanter is why anyone pays $179.00.

Artwork sorts the range. James Lockhart painted the wildlife pieces: Cardinal Birds and Chipmunk. Frederic Remington supplies the American West: The Cowboy and The Indian Trapper. The Collector's Editions reproduce gallery paintings, Edition V being Rembrandt's The Jewish Bride and Edition VI Frans Hals's Boy Holding a Flute, while The Bag Piper is Van Dyck and Chopin is Edward H. Weiss. The Jade Decanter is the outlier, a Jade Floral Pagoda form from the 1970s with no painting behind it.

This is the best dating tool you have. Before 1980, American spirits sold in a fifth, four fifths of a US quart. A quart is 946.35mL, so a fifth is 757mL. On 1 January 1980 the United States went metric and 750ml replaced the fifth.

So a 757ml decanter was filled before 1980 and a 750ml one after. Cardinal Birds, Chipmunk, The Jewish Bride, Boy Holding a Flute and the Jade Decanter are 757ml. Chopin, The Bag Piper, The Indian Trapper and The Cowboy are 750ml. If a seller dates a 757ml decanter to the 1990s, nothing else in that listing has been checked either.

Six things, in the order we check them.

Fill level first. These closed with a cork, and cork gives up over fifty years. A fill at the shoulder is healthy; down at the label line means the seal failed years ago. Second, the stopper strip: intact is worth real money, broken is common and not fatal, missing with a stopper that rocks means a replacement off another decanter.

Third, the glaze. Under an angled light, look for crazing, the fine spiderweb in the ceramic, and hairlines at the base rim and neck join. Fourth, the liquid: dark and clear is fine, cloudy or with sediment is not. Fifth, the gold trim, which rubs off the high points of the moulding. Sixth, the base: these come from private collections and minor markings are inevitable.

Jim Beam first choice is a search with no product behind it. People half-remember the name; what they want is Beam's Choice. If you have hunted under that phrase, you have been reading the wrong listings.

Our pricing is flat at $179.00 regardless of subject, and that is deliberate. On the open market these nine swing widely, and the swing comes from condition and completeness, not the artist on the front. Series position counts too: a Lockhart wildlife piece is worth more to someone assembling the run than to a buyer wanting one nice thing on a shelf.

A firm opinion: buy the decanter, not the whiskey. Pour something from the limited edition range instead. Colour-name bottlings sit on the collectables page, and the everyday bottles are Jim Beam Black and the 700ml range.