Capital One’s Airport Lounge Might Be the Best Place to Drink Rare Whiskey
For most travelers, an airport lounge is a place to grab a drink, answer a few emails, and wait out a weather delay. But tucked inside Capital One’s growing lounge network is something far more fun: a rotating collection of vintage, limited‑release, and otherwise hard‑to‑find spirits and wines priced at cost and sold by the ounce.
The so-called Rare Bottle Club will thrill spirits obsessives, who can order treasures like a 1966 Tamnavulin‑Glenlivet Single Malt Scotch in Las Vegas, a Fuenteseca 11‑year Extra Añejo Tequila in Dallas-Fort Worth, or a decades‑old Rivesaltes fortified sweet wine at New York’s JFK.
Courtesy Capital One
The idea for these deluxe beverages came from someone who never expected to work at a bank.
“I am not a normal Capital One hire,” says David Borowik, the company’s Director of Airport Experiences & Partnerships. Before joining in 2021, he spent years running Michelin‑starred restaurants in Europe and running high-end food and beverage programs at luxury resorts. “If you want to talk about finance, I’ll refer you to someone else. But If you want to talk about a cocktail list, I’m your person.”
When Capital One opened its first lounge at DFW, Borowik and beverage consultants Unfiltered Hospitality began experimenting with offerings travelers couldn’t get elsewhere—first a custom “perfect airport beer” and then a locally-driven spirits program. By the time the lounge opened in Denver’s airport, the Rare Bottle Club had fully taken shape.
Courtesy Capital One
“It started off by us trying to find bottles where we said, hey, what would you not normally find in an airport?” Borowik says. The turning point came when he tasted a Real Minero Ensamble Mezcal—it was one of only 88 bottles of the spirit produced in 2018. “It’s about the distillate in the bottle, but it’s also about a fun experience that I was so privileged to have. I was like, we’re on to something here.”
Each lounge’s list is different, shaped by local liquor laws and regional tastes. In Las Vegas, the menu reads like a collector’s fantasy. The Tamnavulin‑Glenlivet 1966 Birds Edition is the kind of Scotch time capsule that usually surfaces only at auction or on secondary-market sites. It was bottled in 1988 as part of a now‑coveted series. On online spirits retailer, Cask Cartel, a bottle of the whisky is currently selling for $4,000 before tax and shipping; meanwhile in the Capital One lounge a 1-ounce pour goes for $200.
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Then there’s Michter’s King Tut 1978 Whiskey ($30 a pour), which was a commemorative release that was tied to the wildly popular Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition that toured the US. The bottle is an artifact of American whiskey history from when the brand was based in Pennsylvania. (There’s one in the Smithsonian.)
Also on the list is a late‑1960s Beefeater Gin ($30) and pre‑1989 Suntory Blue Label Gin ($60), which offer a clue of how your Martini might have tasted in other eras. And a vintage Cynar with a German Artischocken export label ($20), which is the sort of amaro collectors dream about finding.
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Meanwhile the lounge in JFK leans into vintage brandies and grower Champagne. Decades‑old Chateau de Briat, Bas-Armagnac ($20) and Lemorton Calvados Domfrontais ($15) sit alongside 375ml bottles of Billecart‑Salmon Brut Rosé ($60) and Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Extra Brut (2018).
Dallas and Denver highlight agave and American craft whiskey, which reflect both regional preferences and what Borowik calls “what travelers are going to be really excited about.” That includes a bottle of Fuenteseca Reserva 11 Year Tequila ($25 at DFW), which is distilled at high elevation and aged in a cool subterranean barrel room. In Denver, travelers can sample Real Minero’s single‑variety mezcals—Barril ($15), Largo ($20), and the tiny‑production Ensamble ($20), which showcase traditional clay‑pot distillation. Whiskey selections at DEN include a 7-year-old rye from local distillery Laws Whiskey House and Doc Swinson’s Pineau des Charentes, from a brand in Washington that sources whiskey and focuses on unique barrel finishes.
The pricing is intentionally transparent. “For the most part, it is an at‑cost program,” Borowik says. “If it cost me $30 an ounce to have a vintage Johnnie Walker Red Label in there, then it’s $30 an ounce on the menu.”
Because the lists skew esoteric, each lounge designates a staff member who knows the bottles intimately. “Travelers who get excited about the romanticism of spirits immediately get it,” he says. Others simply enjoy spotting a bottle they’ve only ever seen at auction.
Accessing the Rare Bottle Club requires access to the lounge itself. Capital One Venture X and Venture X Business cardholders (both require a $395 annual fee) receive unlimited complimentary visits. Venture and Spark Miles cardholders receive two free visits per year; additional visits and day passes cost $65.
For Borowik, the Rare Bottle Club is about creating the kind of moment travelers remember.
It’s meant to “promote even more discovery and really kick off someone’s journey and travel while they’re in the lounge space,” he says. “Before you even get to your destination, you’re already on vacation.”