Hey, so, I’m a whiskey writer, but today I’m not here to tell you about the most exciting new bottle I’ve tasted since the last one I called exciting.
I’m here to talk to all of you about an important subject: bottle FOMO.
Bottle FOMO is a condition that can affect anyone — even me.
I’m very privileged that I get the opportunity to taste just about every whiskey that comes to market in the U.S. I’ve also been doing it for more than a decade now, long enough that I no longer worry about tasting every one of them.
It’s not a quality thing, I swear. Many of them are already great. They can’t get much better. There’s not much at stake.
But I do still experience whiskey FOMO in a lot of situations.
The Causes of Whiskey FOMO
I get FOMO when I’m late to the party on a great new whiskey. Sometimes samples get put on the shelf, and by the time I taste them, the entire stock is long since sold off. Delicious, and gone forever.
Other writers’ reviews can give me FOMO, too — when you can really tell they loved it, and didn’t just like it.
There’s a difference between a “that’s good whiskey” review and an “I really loved this bottle” review. As a critic, sometimes you find that a whiskey is good, but not very interesting. Sometimes a whiskey is exactly what you’re expecting, but nothing more.
I get FOMO when someone likes a whiskey more than I did. Am I wrong? Did I miss something? Can I still trust my senses?
Mostly, though, I get FOMO about the tasting events themselves. I miss the Booker’s Bourbon Roundtable in the years when I don’t get an invite. On the Roundtable, you get to sit with multiple versions of the whiskey and compare them alongside other tasters, before one version is selected to be bottled.
Symptoms of Whiskey FOMO
In every one of these scenarios, I get the urge to hoard as many bottles as I can of the liquid in question. It’s about preventing the regret.
Symptoms of not buying the bottle include watching the price slowly increase over time, overpaying for single pours at bars and restaurants, and resentful glares directed toward the whiskeys you do own.
But importantly, there’s a shared quality among all of my FOMO-inducing scenarios — they’re all tied to a moment where there’s some opportunity for engagement.
And that’s kind of my point — the most important thing in whiskey (for a guy that can pretty much taste whatever he wants) is getting to be part of a conversation.
And maybe that’s the reframe we all need.
How to Manage Whiskey FOMO
September is Bourbon Heritage Month, and every year America’s distilleries really dial everything to 11 on new releases. It can get overwhelming, and some whiskey collectors tend to swipe their credit cards to failure under pressure.
You don’t need to chase unicorns or mortgage the house to have plenty of fun and find plenty of great whiskeys this month. You just need some focus.
Here’s the strategy guide I’d give you before turning you loose at something like the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, or the liquor store, or your buddy’s bourbon collection:
Buy into experiments. Whiskey has never been more of a nightmare multiverse of recipes, finishes, and proof points. Have fun. Try Sazerac Rye at three different proof points, and round up a few tequila-finished bourbons to compare.
Pay attention to the little guys. If you’re seeing a whiskey for the first time in 2026, there’s a good chance it’s just re-branded MGP, but you owe it to yourself to see if some tiny distillery just made it to your store for the first time.
Challenge your expectations. I don’t really care which brands you think are overrated. That tells me nothing about your taste except that it is narrow. Revisit some of the things you’ve shrugged off, and see if they’ve improved. See if a brand you weren’t impressed with has added a product you do like.
Here’s the thing, though: if over-collecting and panic buying are whiskey sins, then surely the worst whiskey sin has to be collecting so many bottles and never actually opening them.
I think the worst FOMO I could have is realizing that I’ve missed out on the chance to share whiskeys I have with people I like. Leaving a walk-in closet full of dusty, unopened bottles to anyone feels like a waste — I’d rather know someone’s going to have to wheel in a recycling bin to toss all the empties I kept for the memories.
This isn’t just about whiskey, by the way. Maybe it’s wine, or beer, or cigars or quarter ounces of rare cannabis strains. Maybe it’s expired camera film. If you’re saving it for something special, you’re doing it wrong. It’s up to you to make the special, not to wait for it to come to you.
Hoarding isn’t collecting, gathering dust isn’t gaining value, and waiting isn’t enjoying.
The point of this stuff is to enjoy it.
If you’re not, you’re missing out.
not me scanning the background of these KYBF images to see if I see myself.