STYLE Edit: With US$5 million of booze, Sotheby’s ‘Ultimate Whisky Collection’ is the most valuable whisky auction ever
Sotheby’s is billing an upcoming wines and spirits auction it will hold in London this month as “The Ultimate Whisky Collection”. The 467 bottles and nine casks to go under the hammer, all from one American collector, are expected to fetch around £4 million (US$4.92 million). That will make it the most valuable collection ever to be auctioned.
Leading the sale will be a bottle of The Macallan 1926. Called the “holy grail” of whisky, it was 60 years old when bottled. Only 40 bottles have been produced.
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Three such bottles broke the world record on separate occasions last year. The first was in Hong Kong in May. It was from 12 among the 40 released with a label designed by Italian artist Valerio Adami. (A further 12 were released with a label designed by British artist Peter Blake.) It went for US$1.02 million (£814,000), making it the most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold at the time.
Five months later, another bottle with the same Adami label, sold for £848,000 (US$1.06 million) in Edinburgh. In London in November, the third bottle, which was a one-off, hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon, sold for £1.2 million (US$1.5 million). The bottle for sale this time has a relatively plain “Macallan” branded label, so it should yield considerably less.
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The Macallan distillery has a tradition of collaborating with artists. From 2006 to 2016, it worked with French crystal house Lalique to release six rare single malts, aged from 50 to 65 years, each in their own individual crystal decanter. They are collectively known as the Lalique Edition Six Pillars Collection. Two full sets will be auctioned in London, each in a bespoke walnut cabinet made by British craftsman James Laycock. Sotheby’s estimates each should fetch £300,000 to £450,000 (US$376,000 to US$564,000).
In addition to 196 lots of vintage Macallan whiskies, the auction will feature 20 lots from legendary Independent bottler Silvano Samaroli, including the Bowmore Bouquet and Laphroaig 1967.
In a first for a Sotheby’s wine and spirits sale, online bidding has already opened in the run up to the live auction, which will be held on October 24. Sotheby’s also has another online spirits sale in November.
“The emerging interest in whisky from buyers in Asia is unprecedented, particularly with heavily sherried whiskies from distilleries such as Macallan,” says the auction house’s spirit specialist Jonny Fowle. “It is amazing to see the dedication people have towards collections of Scotch whisky so far. We are confident that Asia will be integral to the success of The Ultimate Whisky Collection”.
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The 467 bottles and nine casks to go under the hammer are expected to fetch around US$5 million