The Point Of Living

I watched a video on Instagram recently describing the co-option of fashion by fakers as stolen valor. The video’s creator, Kate, explains that fashion “used to be social,” and calls out people across multiple genres (punk rockers, bikers, etc) for caring more about perception than the ideal, saying “today they want the authenticity without the experience.” While I would probably lessen the drama and just call these people what they really are—posers—I thought the point was well made. Today, more than ever (likely due to social media), people everywhere seem to be hell bent on selling you an idea of themselves that isn’t true. Perhaps even more annoying, they want credit for it.

What do I mean specifically? Let’s use distilled spirits as an example. As I scroll through the dozens of social media accounts that I manage for clients, sorting through the grifts from hundreds of direct messages that promise to “authentically tell the brand’s story” in exchange for payment, I’m taken aback by how incredibly inauthentic many of these people are. There are dozens of tells when spotting fake influencers, and many of them are too inexperienced to know how inexperienced they are. However, attempt to call them out on their bullshit and they’ll scream bloody murder. They’ll defend their fake prestige from their fake network of fake followers until the death. In these cases, they want the money without the experience.

But you don’t have to be a fake influencer to be full of shit when it comes to booze. For all the years I worked in retail, we used to lament the endless barrage of guys (bros, in the parlance of our times) who wanted recognition for having good taste when they didn’t have any. They wanted us to make them look cool in front of their friends, when in reality they were as basic as basic gets. “Tell me what the experts drink,” they’d ask, as if they were so smart for having thought of it. So we did. For these guys, having taste didn’t really matter as long as society played along with the rouse. Today, people like this are all over social media, posting their Buffalo Trace stories and posturing like they’re special. It’s like watching someone dressed up and down in an expensive logo, but they still look like shit because they don’t know anything about styling. Yet, they’re convinced they’re passing because they’ve got the right brand.

Fake people by nature tend to associate with other fakers, mainly because they’re the only people out there who will play along with the charade. So when you weed them out, you can still find real people in this business who are authentically living their lives, simply for the point of meeting other interesting people doing the same. It’s rare, but it does happen. Finding those people is the entire reason I continue to love my job. My wife and I have been cutting out posers and seeking authenticity for the better part of the last decade, and I can safely say that we’re happier than we’ve ever been. The point of living is to truly and authentically enjoy yourself, and you can’t do that around posers.

One of the best ways to identify posers is to suss out their motivations. Personally, I derive a greater happiness from giving rather than taking. That’s why my private alcohol stash is modest. I drink what I buy, and I share what I drink. When I come across someone whose sole motivation for having a bottle collection is to post photos of it, use it as a flex, and create content that tells me what’s good and what isn’t, I avoid those guys like the plague. However, when I meet people whose entire ethos revolves around an openness to ideas, creativity, and generosity, I take notice.

I was introduced to Nick Oehlers by my friend Scott Miller (who is another mensch of the same ilk) when we visited his incredible home tiki bar called Savage Seas a little over a month ago. When Nick invited me back this past weekend, I made sure to come with gifts in hand because that’s how I roll. I dug deep into what’s left of my old K&L collection and extracted one of the last Faultline bottles still sitting on my shelf: a 14 year old single barrel of Hampden that we released in 2015. I hoped that my present would convey to Nick my appreciation for both his hospitality and his friendship.

After bestowing these gifts to Nick last night, he looked at the Savage Seas ashtray placed in front me at the bar and said: “I think this one has a crack. Let me replace that for you.” The ashtray he replaced it with is the one in the photo above: a vintage 1970’s ashtray from the 219 in Sandpoint, Idaho—my grandmother’s bar, after which my company is named. Before you wonder just how this could happen, be aware that Nick is a professional bar curator and a collector of vintage bar menus and general swag. He spends countless hours on Facebook marketplace, rummaging through estate sales for vintage bar history, so if there was one person who was capable of finding this ashtray, it was Nick.

That being said, the fact that he chose to do this, simply to see the look on my face when he handed it to me, told me everything I needed to know about the guy. Nick, along with other artists that I mingle with these days, isn’t here for the ego rub. He does what he does because it brings him immense joy to see others enjoying the fruits of his labor. Posers want the credit for the goodwill that people like Nick create. It reminds me of the posts I see frequently on social media about how greedy and heartless today’s billionaires are, knowing they could use their wealth to bring happiness to so many people, yet they hoard it all for their ostentatious lifestyles and empty, soulless parties. Imagine having a billion dollars and never once using it to make someone else happy! That’s the entire point of having it!

It also makes me think of all those guys out there who spend thousands on DRC, Pappy, and other treasures of our industry, then invite a bunch of fake friends over to create the illusion of camaraderie. I’ve been to those parties before and they fucking suck. Today, I politely decline similar invites. Instead, I try to find the remaining people in our industry who have a desire to curate and share their honest experiences, then I reciprocate as best I can to add value to the group. The result is just a bunch of people doing nice things for one another because it makes our lives more enjoyable.

And that is the point of living.

-David Driscoll