February 2025 Whisky & Spirits Auction Results

Our February auction featured some stellar whiskies and spirits, read on for some of the highlights from the February Whisky & Spirits Auction results..

*Aftersales Update*

More lovely Macallan bottles found their way to new owners on the conclusion of our aftersales for this month. Joining the already impressive collection of the Speyside favourite among our top lots were this Macallan M Black from the 2018 release in it’s angular Lalique crystal decanter designed by Fabien Baron, fetching £5,200, and this Macallan 1996 17 Year Old released in 2013 as part of the Easter Elchies Cask Selection series that sold for £2,250. A Macallan Colour Collection set containing the 12, 15, 18 and 21 year old releases sold for £1,950.

Speaking of collections, this lot containing all seven bottles from The Lakes Distillery Whiskymaker’s Reserve series sold for £1,200.

A rather special bottle of Brora 1982 40 Year Old, taken from among some of the last casks to be filled at Brora prior to it closing in 1983 and one of only fifty bottles released as part of the Winston Churchill Collection from bottler Hunter Laing, was snapped up for £2,100.

Macallan

True to form, Macallan once again took the top spot in the auction with the highest hammer price of the night achieved after some exciting late bidding for this Macallan 1928 50 Year Old Anniversary Malt. It eventually closed on a winning bid of £42,000 closely followed by this Macallan 78 Year Old Red Collection with a hammer price of £41,000.

Macallan was dominant among the top lots in the auction and there were plenty of eye catching bottles from this Macallan 1961, bottled from two casks, fetching £16,500 to a Macallan Diamond Jubilee (£3,700), and a range of 18 Year Old bottlings from between 1964 and 1980.

Japanese Whisky

This month saw a great selection of almost 100 Japanese whiskies on offer. Top Japanese lots were led by a quartet of long-aged, cask strength Karuizawa single cask releases including three Noh casks featuring stunning Japanese theatrical masks on the labels. This Karuizawa 1971 41 Year Old Noh Cask 1842 sold for £9,600 while a 1980 32 Year Old Noh Cask 7614 ended on £4,300 and this 1983 28 Year Old Noh Cask 7576 fetched £3,100. The remaining Karuizawa was this 1972 40 Year Old Cask 8833 that sold for £6,000.

Also among the mature Japanese malts was a Hibiki 30 Year Old Kagami Crystal Decanter (£3,300) and a Yamazaki Sherry Cask bottled in 2010 that attracted plenty of attention, fetching £1,900. A Hakushu 1992 Owner’s Cask bottled in 2011 ended the auction with a winning bid of £1,150.

Featuring one of the best label designs in the auction, this Chichibu 2014 9 Year Old, part of the Chichibu Stamp Rally series and bottled for WhiskyMew in 2023, sold for £925. Chichibu often provide interesting cask finishes with this particularly release matured in a Bourbon barrel moved to a double apple saison beer barrel to finish.

Scotch Whisky

Vintage bottles and rare casks provided many of the Scotch highlights in the auction with some 1970s bottlings among my favourite lots including this pair of Laphroaig 10 Year Olds, sold for £1,550 and £1,500, and this Clynelish 12 Year Old Ainslie and Heilbron bottling that fetched £650.

There were other 60s and 70s vintages with much longer maturations such as a Glendronach 1972 38 Year Old bottled from a single Oloroso Sherry butt (£1,750), a Talisker 1977 35 Year Old, the 2012 release from Diageo’s special releases series (£1,300), a Glenury Royal 1968 36 Year Old (£900) and this Bowmore 1973 21 Year Old (£750).

Bottled in the 1990s, this trio of Springbank 25 Year Olds were guaranteed to attract attention being from a distillery with a large and dedicated following. They sold for between £1,000 and £1,150 a piece.

Brora featured among the top lots with plenty of last minute bidding on this Brora 1972 22 Year Old from Diageo’s Rare Malts Selection selling for £4,400. Another Rare Malts Brora 1982 20 Year Old sold for £700, while this bottling of from Direct Wine’s First Cask range, a 1982 21 Year Old was a relative steal at £500.

Indie Bottlers

Among this month’s indie bottlings were a large and varied selection of malts from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society including some older style bottlings such as this Glen Mhor 1977 21 Year Old (£370) and Glen Elgin 1984 13 Year Old (£260). More recent bottlings included a Glenfarclas 41 Year Old sold for £1,000.

From Hunter Laing, there was a 1983 Port Ellen 38 Year Old, one of only 150 bottles released from the recently revived Islay distillery and bottled for the Winston Churchill Spirit Collection. This sold for £3,000. Another popular lot, also reaching £3,000, was a Longmorn 1972 30 Year Old bottled by Kingsbury and Co.

An Ardbeg 1964 30 Year Old, unusually for a Connoisseurs Choice sporting an age statement, fetched £1,400, while, also bottled by Gordon and MacPhail, this Pride of Strathspey 1938 45 Year Old with the intricate Book of Kells label sold for £900.

It is always worth looking through independent bottlings as there are often great whiskies that can be picked up for lower prices than equivalent official distillery releases, also often bottled at cask strength, and some interesting malts were also provided by newer indie bottlers such as Thompson Brothers and Decadent Drinks Whisky Sponge bottlings.

Roundup

Focus is often on the single malts but there were some great vintage blends on offer in the auction dating back to the 1950s and 60s such as this Claymore (£280), Dewar’s White Label (£240), King George IV (£210), Usher’s Green Stripe (£210) and White Horse (£180) among others. Opening old blends is always interesting and can have surprisingly excellent results as anyone who has visited our stand at past Whisky Shows should be able to attest.

For bourbon fans who want to add a bit of character and some talking points to their bar, these fun Jim Beam decanters sold for between £190 and £320 with the top price going to the Police Patrol Car (£320), narrowly beating the Dial Pay Phone (£310).

Sticking with American whiskey, this Daniel Weller fetched £1,500 while this lovely Old Fitzgerald 6 Year Old bottled in 1962 sold for £700. It was a good night for a couple of Jack Daniel’s Bicentennial bottles with hammer prices of £400-£410, reaching around double what these have been achieving at auction in recent months.

See the full February Whisky & Spirits Auction results here.

See our past auction roundups here.