Beaming over Jim Beam - Main Street Media of Tennessee (2024)

1. Beam Around the World

Nearly 40 years into hunting high and low for Jim Beam ceramic decanters, Betty and Charles Barrett have accumulated a breathtaking collection of 1,650 figural whiskey bottles.

But you will never smell a whiff of liquor on their lips.

“We like the bottles, not what’s inside,” says Betty.

“I’ve never taken a sip. I don’t drink,” Charles adds, as he stands surrounded on three sides by display cases that hold hundreds of colorful decanters in a wide assortment of shapes.

“There’s a lot of bottles here. Ninety-nine percent is Jim Beam [bourbon whiskey]. There is not anyone that I know of that has any bigger display,” said the member of the International Association of Jim Beam Bottle and Specialties Clubs Collectors (IAJBBSC).

The decorative bottles, which were minted by Regal China in Antioch, Ill., have several things in common, but, most importantly, at one time, each held a fifth of whiskey. That would add up to 330 gallons.

Charles, who retired after working for more than 33 years at the Ford Glass Plant in Nashville where he was a manufacturing planning specialist, said, “I have eight full bottles in the house. I’ve furnished every Ford Glass reunion with it, but we don’t drink.”

“We’ve poured a lot of it on the ground,” said Betty, a fact that likely would make a hard-drinking man shed tears.

“We are both involved. I started with the clear decanters, but it evolved into all of them,” said Betty of the menagerie.

Charles noted, “I’ve got nearly all the regular Jim Beam bottles produced by Regal China. When we started out, we had bought a house in Lebanon. It had a loft in it. Betty took a notion to put clear whiskey bottles between the handrails that were spread four inches apart.

“We went to an antique store that had opened in what had been Maple Hill Restaurant near where Bates Ford is now in Lebanon. We found about 20 bottles. We decided that day that we would collect all 50 states, only they didn’t make all 50 states. So we got started, and here I am.

“I’ve got all the Jim Beam Regal China bottles but one. It is up there in Clermont, Ky. (site of the Jim Beam Distillery). It cost $200, and you have to buy it there. I plan to get it someday.”

The couple began searching for bottles in 1979 or 1980, first looking for the clear ones and then those that were shaped like states. Within 10 years, they filled four large cabinets.

Betty grew up in Watertown, while Charles was raised in Greenvale. So in 1991, they moved back to the country where Charles had a carpenter build extra cabinets in their new home. But soon the collection was spilling over.

“I had gotten so many bottles the cabinets were full, and there was really no place for them. Miss Betty told me, ‘You can collect bottles but you can’t junk up the house.’ I kept buying bottles, and the living room was full, so I built this room,” he said of their den, which has expanded into two rooms totaling 900 square feet.

Here behind glass, whiskey decanters abound in an astonishing array of forms. They are shaped like cowboys, clowns, ducks, geese, elephants, monkeys, fire helmets, horses, fish, telephones, chainsaw, trains, soldiers, leprechaun, bells and mermaids. Some bear the likenesses of Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Elvis, Hank Williams (Senior and Junior) and J.R. Ewing of “Dallas” fame. One bottle in the form of Mount St. Helens actually has a small tube on the back that holds ash from the site of the 1980 explosion.

These rare bottles hold a special place in this ceramic crowd: the First National Bank of Chicago decanter, only 160 made; a Spiro T. Agnew elephant-shaped bottle; and a Richard Nixon decanter and plate that were made in commemoration of the 1972 Republican National Convention.

Permanently parked in the couple’s living room, the 114-piece “Wheels” series, starring mostly automobiles and trucks, covers an entire wall from floor to ceiling.

Occasionally, a bottle leaves the house, which could be described as a Jim Beam decanter museum. Charles gave two Thunderbird bottles to Betty’s heart surgeon and passed along a pink Cadillac bottle to his cancer doctor.

The Beam Distillery began filling their whiskey into ornamental bottles in 1955. Martin Lewin, who later became company president, got his inspiration after he spied a small red fox on a glass music box made by Royal Doulton. The red fox later became the mascot for the international collectors club.

Charles knows the story behind the bottles like a man who has touched them all. He says, “I’ve got every club newsletter, ‘Beam Around the World,’ and programs from every convention.”

Betty and Charles joined the club in 1981 and have been to 10 of the national conventions. He has been president of the Tennessee chapter, the Music City Jim Beam Bottle Club, for the past 17 years.

The two dozen or so members meet at 2 p.m. the first Sunday of every other month at Depot Junction in Watertown. Their most recent confab convened on June 3. Besides discussing all things Jim Beam, the Beamers play their own version of bingo in a game they call Beamo. The big winner at each meeting receives a decanter from Charles.

Betty, who served as secretary-treasurer of the chapter for several years, said the hobby has allowed them to travel and meet scores of nice people along the way.

“And looking for bottles, it’s fun,” she said. “We’ve been to flea markets, antique stores, estate sales.”

Her favorite bottle of the congregation of 1,650 in her house is shaped like the Space Shuttle. “The one I like least is of King Kong. It’s the ugliest one we got,” she said.

Glancing around the den, Charles said, “There’s not many of these bottles that I can’t tell you where it came from. Betty and I could drive 300 miles on a Saturday and not find a decanter we didn’t have.

“About every three or four years, I have to take ‘em out and dust ‘em and clean the shelves ‘cause the lighting will shake and move some of them.

“This collection is not for sale. Eventually, if we downsize, I would like to donate them to Wilson County if they would create a museum and keep them there,” said Barrett.

We’ll drink to that. But better make it sweet tea.