My friend Ewan, who works for Diageo, recently sent me down a weekend-long rabbit hole into the world of vintage watches that had me reading message boards and Instagram comments for hours at a time, while marveling in the parallel nerdism that clearly connects horology to alcohol appreciation.
But rather than bore you with all the detailed connections I wrote down, and the endless meta-syntactical similarities, I’ll just say this: patina.
What is patina? That’s what I asked myself yesterday, having spent hours on the couch crunching numbers on second-hand Rolex movements.
Patina is basically age. Or wear and tear. Or the individual wrinkles that time bestows upon us. And it’s a thing with watches.
As this article from Christie’s spells out: “One of the most interesting evolutions in vintage watch collecting has been the desire to move away from watches that have been restored and polished to look ‘like new’ in favour of watches in original condition with honest patina. Nicks, scratches and fading that may have developed over the course of decades of wear can enhance a watch’s desirability.”
In other words, if you’re buying a vintage watch you may end up paying more for one that has been beat up over the years, rather than one that has been carefully maintained and restored. That’s because patina sells.
It reminds me of the Levi’s phenomenon a while back where Japanese tourists specifically wanted vintage denim that had dirt from an actual rodeo crusted across the front. The authenticity of the jeans was more important than the physical condition of the object itself.
And guess what? This phenomenon isn’t just limited to watches or clothes.
An article from Gear Patrol goes deeper: “There was a broad evolution in collecting, across many different categories, to prefer original, untouched, and unrestored pieces compared to those made to look ‘new.’ That is the case for coin collecting, where coins that had cleaning in the past are hardly sellable. Likewise, cars that are too heavily restored are also becoming harder to sell as people now are beginning to prefer unrestored cars with their original paint and seats. Likewise, paintings that have had significant restoration are also more difficult to sell today than in the past.”
So is there a patina parallel to alcohol? Yes, of course there is.
If we’re talking about wine, I would say that the tenets of terroir and hands-off production have long valued the inherent flaws and individuality of both land and nature when it comes to character. In short, it means that wines with earthy or funky flavors from natural causes are often more sought-after than wines that are clean and polished.
If we’re talking about whisky, I’d say the rise of cask strength single barrel expressions over the last decade mirrors the patina evolution in time pieces. Rather than find the oldest, smoothest, perfectly-blended expression of Scotch available, consumers have gravitated over to raw, untempered, individual casks of whisky that may be unbalanced or jagged on the palate, but in turn have more character and personality.
What the rise of patina in the watch industry alludes to is a maturity of connoisseurship. It’s the same with alcohol. Over time, as you come to appreciate any genre, you start to look for greater meaning. And you start to ask what exactly it is that you’re paying for. Sometimes a product that is too perfect can seem inauthentic because that’s not how reality works.
It reminds me of the scene from the Matrix where we find out there was a previous iteration of the Matrix that failed because human minds wouldn’t accept a world without imperfections.
Ultimately, we come to value authenticity because of its flaws, rather than in spite them.
-David Driscoll