Lightning in a bottle: How Jay-Z and Diddy became this century’s greatest booze barons

On the 18th February 2018, a waitress at a Manhattan nightclub posted a photo of a credit card receipt on her Snapchat feed. The bill in question was the last dispatch from a night of revelry between a few close friends and colleagues — an impulsive, celebratory jaunt that had seen them zig-zag across Manhattan, shuttling between hyper-fashionable sharing plate joints, Midtown power restaurants and fashion set Mezcalerias in a motorcade of blacked out saloons. $13,000 at Zuma. $9,000 at Made in Mexico. And finally, at Playroom — a neon-lit hip hop club uptown on 10th Avenue — a casual $91,135.00 (tip included).

The picture went viral. Not because of the exorbitant sum, however — but because of the man who paid it. The bill had been signed off, it soon emerged, by Jay-Z, who was out that evening celebrating his friend and business confidante Juan ‘OG’ Perez’s 50th birthday (Perez is the president of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports company). But more interesting than the lavish spending, or the half-century milestone, or the rapper’s identity, were the itemised contents of the bill — 40 bottles of something called Ace of Spades Gold, bought at a price of $1,200 a pop. If you want to know how the alcohol market operates at its highest reaches in 2020, this little document should furnish you with some answers.

The message that evening was clear. Champagne, for centuries the preserve of the dauphin and the banker, had now officially become the plaything of the self-made hustler. But as the sole owner of the brand behind the bottles on his lengthy tab, Jay-Z wasn’t simply flaunting his wealth — he was inflating it. As the leaked bill spread around the world, the rap mogul once again flexed the ingenious mechanism that had come to characterise his business success: invest in a distinctive brand, give it free publicity in your songs and music videos, integrate it seamlessly into your everyday life (perhaps by buying it back from yourself and sharing it around an Uptown Manhattan club) — and then sit back and watch as everyone else does the same. In that moment, popping bottles had stopped becoming simply good fun — it was now good business, too.

Become a Gentleman’s Journal Member?

Like the Gentleman’s Journal? Why not join the Clubhouse, a special kind of private club where members receive offers and experiences from hand-picked, premium brands. You will also receive invites to exclusive events, the quarterly print magazine delivered directly to your door and your own membership card.

Click here to find out more