I generally drink everything I buy. That said, I do have a few bottles (most of them Japanese whisky or Scotch whisky) that I have not opened. The Scotch I would consider "flipping" at some point, I suppose (JW Explorer's Club selections I picked up at Duty Free), but the rest I intend to consume myself.

On the one hand, I understand keeping aside a 2nd bottle with the thought, "That way I can enjoy one, and maybe sell the other some day." On the other hand, the speculators and flippers are despicable scum who have driven up the prices of everything and made it very hard for real enthusiasts to obtain some of the better bourbons out there for their own consumption.

I love having a real "find" when you come across something special in some hole-in-the-wall store, snatch it up, and enjoy it at home.

There needs to be an equitable system of some sort to deal with the reality of scarcity of many products. For VA, I'd love to see them replace their waiting lists (which they no longer allow people to join, and which one doubts the stores even really honored to begin with) with a lottery, where you put down 50% deposits toward the boozes you're interested in, and can win at most 2 bottles of any given spirit and 10 bottles in any given year. Or something--our system in VA is completely broken even accounting for the fact they're state-owned ABC stores.