Raiding the Liquor Cabinet

Before it became politically incorrect, you could buy the heads of Mickey Mouse and Goofy filled with bourbon whiskey. Today the Disney characters are among hundreds of Jim Beam theme decanters that fill an entire room in Betty McDaniel’s Orange County home. “This is my bottle room,” says McDaniel, who started accumulating the curiosities with her husband in the early 1960s and estimates that her trove numbers well beyond 1,000 pieces counting the duplicates in storage.

There are marine-themed decanters, an ocean of captains, mermaids, shells, anchors and fish that fill a giant floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. There are auto-themed decanters, from horseless carriages to Volkswagen Bugs and Dodge Chargers, which cover several tables. There are leprechaun decanters and magic lamp decanters. Pheasants cavort amid showgirls and cowboys. Another shelf displays 40 different foxes in clown outfits, each holding a balloon. Americana from the second half of the 20th century also is well-represented: A souvenir of the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle shaped like the Space Needle; a poodle on a space capsule from a 1969 Beam collectors convention in Houston; the 1969 Kentucky Derby; and another from Del Webb’s Mint casino--decanters, every one.

The Jim Beam Co. released its first collectible decanter in 1955 and created 900 individual models before ceasing production in 1992, says Shirley Sumbles, executive administrator of the International Assn. of Jim Beam Bottle and Specialties Clubs. According to her, rare Beam decanters have sold for as much as $3,000. The organization, founded in 1971, has clubs in such unlikely locales as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Germany, Sumbles says. “It’s a very popular collectible.”

McDaniel plans to attend the Jim Beam convention in Memphis this summer, but she has about reached her limit on decanters, because decanters are just the half of it at her home. A past president of the Orange County Art Guild, she has covered the walls with her oil painting collection. In the bottle room, a 6-by-5-foot wall cabinet holds 1,000 or so tiny liquor bottles from around the world. There’s also the hand bell collection. Then there are the spoons and saltshakers. “I’m a collector,” McDaniel says. “Period.”