December 2025 Whisky & Spirits Auction Results

It was a fitting end to the year with some incredible bottles on offer in our final sale of 2025. From spectacular decanters to gorgeous vintage bottles, there was a great variety on offer and bidding was suitably competitive. Read on for just a handful of the highlights.

Top lots

A great December auction saw us achieve our highest hammer price of the year thanks to this month’s top bottle, this stunning Macallan 50 Year Old in Lalique, not only a first edition release from The Six Pillars series but also bottle number three of the 470 beautiful Lalique crystal decanters created. The winning bid was an impressive £75,000.

Macallan still remains at the top of most sales and this month was no exception with plenty to choose from. Another Lalique decanter of the Macallan M Black sold for £3,600, as did a Macallan 2008 Distil Your World London Edition. But with almost a hundred Macallan to choose from, there were bottles for all budgets.

Taking the second spot was a Laphroaig 1965 20 Year Old Special Selection, bottled by Gordon & MacPhail in 1986 and exported to the Italian market by Intertrade. This was one of only 171 bottles and after some late bidding settled on a hammer price of £6,000.

As ever, mixed among the top lots was a handful of Japanese malts with the category led by this Karuizawa 1981 35 Year Old Single Cask #7427 with a fittingly wintry label that sold for £5,000. Not far behind was a Yamazaki 25 Year Old fetching £4,900.

Scotch Whisky

Whatever category you looked in this auction there was no shortage of bottles to excite collectors, investors and drinkers alike. There were far too many stand outs to name here, but a few would include this Glenmorangie Pride 1981 28 Year Old in its distinctive decanter that sold for £4,700. Other Highland gems included this Clynelish 1972 Cask Strength from Cadenhead’s (£2,000) and a Dalmore 1966 40 Year Old (£3,200).

From Islay there were peated delights from Lagavulin such as this 1980s Lagavulin 12 Year Old (£1,200) and a 1979 Distiller’s Edition (£750), the first of this series of releases for the distillery. A Port Ellen 1983 32 Year Old, the fifteenth release in the Special Releases series fetched £1,700, an upturn on recent prices.

Our Island category had a selection of vintage Gordon & MacPhail Talisker bottlings with a 1970 100 Proof fetching an impressive £2,700, while a 1974 100 Proof sold for £1,600. Much older but bottled at a standard 40%, this Talisker 1958 sold for £675.

One of the most contested bottles of the night was a Speysider, with this Strathisla 1967 Bar Metro 35th Anniversary seeing some late bidding action before settling on £1,750.

From Campbeltown, indie bottlers provided much of the upper end of the category with long aged malts such as a Springbank 1968 40 Year Old (£1,550) from Chieftain’s Choice and another Springbank 1967 40 Year Old (£1,500) bottled by Duncan Taylor. There was also a lovely 1970s Springbank 12 Year Old that fetched £725.

Not to be left out, the Lowland category offered up this Rare Ayrshire 1974 44 Year Old bottled as part of Signatory Vintage’s 30th Anniversary range, that also saw some competitive late bidding and ended the evening on £1,500.

Blends

Deserving of a mention are some of the vintage blends in the auction often overshadowed by the single malts. There were some well preserved historic bottles such as this 1957 White Horse (£470) and a 1940s Haig & Haig with its original box (£230). A half bottle of John Haig & Co. Gold Label dating back further, from the 1930s, fetched £100.

Cognac

Outside of whisky, if you were looking to fill up your Cognac shelf then there were over 100 bottles in the auction including a gorgeously decorated Courvoisier Mizunara, a blend of Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne and Borderies aged in French Oak barrels for a minimum of 10 years before being finished in Japanese Mizunara Oak casks. One of only 500 bottles from the 2021 release, this fetched £1,500.

Top bottle was this Courvoisier Erte No.8 Inedit (£1,850), while other bottles from the Erte Collection, No.5 Degustation (£675), No.6 L’Esprit Du Cognac (£575), No.4 Vieillissement (£525) and No.2 Vendanges (£330) were also hotly contested.

There was a Remy Martin Coupe Cognac released to celebrate the marque’s 300th anniversary that was being auctioned off for charity and raised an impressive £1,200

Multiples of connoisseurs favourites such as Richard Hennessy and Hennessy Paradis as well as Remy Martin Louis XIII provided plenty of opportunities to stock up on a special bottle of festive brandy.

Often overshadowed by Cognac, it is worth mentioning the selection of vintage Armagnacs available, often at what could be considered bargain prices in comparison to similar vintage Cognacs. For example this Chateau De Laubade 1941 (£200) and this Baron De Sigognac 1947 (£180).

Roundup

There were strong results for Monkey 47 gins with the most hotly contested lot of the auction being this Monkey 47 Distiller’s Cut 2010, the inaugural release in the series, eventually settling on £675 after a long running bidding battle. Other early releases in the series saw a 2011 Distiller’s Cut sell for £250 and the 2012 release for £180.

Chartreuse continued solid prices with this 1941-51 Green Chartreuse in particular fetching £1,750.

Other vintage liqueurs also saw competitive bidding with 1950s bottles of Campari Bitter (£400) and Bonomelli Bitter Milano (£410) performing well.

See the full December Whisky & Spirits Auction results here.

See our past auction roundups here.