December Whisky Auction Highlights 2024
Welcome to our December 2024 Whisky-Online Auction highlights! We’ve got some extraordinary old whiskies from the likes of Bowmore, Karuizawa, Brora and Highland Park in this bumper sale and, as it’s the end of the year, this final auction will run until 8th January, so you can fill your Watchlists and keep track of the action all through the holiday period.
Distillery Bottlings
We’ll start our Distillery Bottlings roundup with Macallan, as there are some great ones this month. Highlights from the Speyside behemoth’s 21st century offerings include three different editions of Macallan Oscuro, Macallan 30-year-old Fine Oak and a splendid assortment of recent 18-year-old, 25-year-old and Rare Cask editions.
Old school sherried Macallans from the distillery’s white-hot streak of releases in the 1980s and 1990s, meanwhile, include Macallan 18-year-olds from the 1976 and 1978 vintages, plus the rare “double vintage” Macallan 1958/59 25-year-old Anniversary bottling from 1985 and two contrasting official bottlings of Macallan 1964 - the first an absolutely brilliant Special Selection edition released in 1981 shortly before the advent of the official 18-year-old editions, and the second a deeper, more complex Macallan 1964 25-year-old Anniversary edition bottled in 1989.
There’s plenty more great historical old school OBs this month, like the Glenfiddich Straight Malt bottled in the 1960s. This is a very early example of the famously pioneering mass market Glenfiddich official bottling, with the words ‘Bottled At The Distillery’ given a particularly prominent position on the label to emphasise how unusual this was back then.
Other classic 20th century core range OBs include a marvellous selection of wonderful old bottles of Highland Park, including the famous 1980s screen-printed dumpy 12-year-old and both dumpy and tall bottle versions of the glorious Highland Park 18-year-olds bottled in the late 1980s and 1990s after Highland Distillers realised, rather belatedly, that Macallan wasn’t their only great distillery.
Alongside those Macallan 18-year-olds of the day, the early 18-year-old Highland Parks really set the gold standard for top class core range bottlings, and for the serious HP nuts we’ve also got the incredible dumpy bottle Highland Park 25-year-old - this all time legend was bottled in the late 1990s at a very bold 53.5%, making it the punchiest of the magnificent official releases of the day. This textbook after dinner whisky is both boisterous and refined, with delicious sherry fruit, chocolate, leather and tobacco notes, making it a brilliant match for a medium-full cigar, if that’s your thing.
Moving west, there’s a treasure trove of amazing distillery bottlings of Islay single malt whisky, both recent and from the golden age. Highlights include the iconic Bowmore 25-year-old ‘Seagulls’ ceramic bottle, and a fantastic old small batch 21-year-old Bowmore 1973 released in the mid-1990s. The official Bowmore 21-year-olds from this era are all fabulous whiskies, as you might expect, and this 1973 21-year-old is bursting with venerable plummy, citrus and tropical fruit flavours wrapped in a light thread of smoke.
There’s also the exceptionally elegant Laphroaig 30-year-old from the early 2000s, and a more recent edition of the famous Bunnahabhain 40-year-old originally rescued from the Turney casks in 2012, while for Lagavulin fans we’ve got a Jazz Festival Lagavulin 21-year-old bottled in 2019 at a sturdy 50.9% cask strength, and one of the legendary white label Lagavulin 12-year-olds bottled in the 1980s White Horse Distillers era.
For the collectors, meanwhile, there’s the famous Lagavulin 15-year-old ceramic decanter, a highly sought-after special edition that was hand-bottled at the distillery in the early 1980s. Released at the higher strength of 45%, this fantastic Lagavulin 15-year-old pre-dated the famous Classic Malts 16-year-old edition by a few years - the only core range Lagavulin at the time was the White Horse 12-year-old mentioned above - and was one of the last official bottlings to claim the distillery’s founding year as 1742 rather than 1816. Specialist collectors will also be chasing the Glasgow Garden Festival Bowmore 10-year-old special edition released in 1988: this tall bottle 10-year-old was released at the same time as the rather more famous ceramic decanter 15-year-old, but is much less frequently encountered.
Elsewhere, peat fans will also be keeping tabs on the fabulous Talisker 1978 40-year-old. Bottled in 2018, this Talisker was the first Bodega Series release and was a limited edition of just 2000 bottles at a sturdy 50% strength. This 1978 40-year-old was the oldest ever official Talisker at the time of release, and was finished in sherry casks from one of the oldest Bodegas in Jerez, Delgado Zuleta, which was founded in 1744. The immediate acclaim that welcomed this release set the stage for three further bottlings of Talisker 1978 in 2019-2021.
Moving to Campbeltown, there’s some interesting official bottlings from Springbank including a rare 1990s tall bottle / white label edition of Springbank 12-year-old with a distillery portrait, and a fantastic old black label Springbank 12-year-old released at some point during the 1980s. Springbank barely distilled any whisky at all between 1979-87, so the whisky in both these bottles would almost certainly have been distilled in the 1970s or very late 1960s.
The Springbank 12-year-olds from these eras are always absolutely delicious - expect bags of minerality, clean fruit, hints of smoke, tweed and a spicy kick. While we’re here, there’s also a very nice selection of Springbank Society bottlings of Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn for collectors to grab hold of.
Miscellaneous distillery bottlings worth keeping in your watchlist this month include the fantastic 40-year-old Tomintoul 1974, bottled in 2014. This first official core range Tomintoul 40-year-old was bottled from American oak casks at its natural cask strength of 43.1% and was an edition of just 500 classy crystal decanters.
There’s also the rare Scapa 1980 25-year-old, a 1981 bottling of the much-loved tall bottle Cardhu 12-year-old and the extremely rare Aberlour A’bunadh 12-year-old Sterling Silver edition. The latter was the first ever Aberlour A’bunadh - a small batch of Aberlour’s 1987 vintage bottled in 1999 for the millennium - and remains the only A’bunadh with an age statement.
Independent Bottlings
Let’s start our independent bottlings with a bang, with a wonderful, ancient old Irish whiskey: we have a bottle of Wicklow Very Old Dublin Whisky, a pure malt Irish whiskey bottled for English merchants John Lukey, who were prominent hoteliers as well as whisky blenders, bonders and bottlers based in Folkestone & Dover. We estimate that this bottle dates from around WWII. As this is an independently bottled Irish malt whisky from an undisclosed distillery that was released around 80 years ago, there’s not much information available, but John Lukey & Sons were established, well-regarded bonders and blenders who also bottled an award-winning blended Scotch whisky.
We don’t have nearly enough info to make a call as to what distillery this could be from but, interestingly, Alfred Barnard, on his visit to Dublin’s Phoenix Park distillery in 1886, remarked “the make is called Dublin Whisky and the annual output is 350,000 gallons, which find a market chiefly in London and the Colonies”, though of course other distilleries including Jameson and Marrowbone Lane were also referred to as Dublin Whisky/Whiskey. In any event, this beautiful old bottle of Lukey’s Very Old Dublin Whisky is an absolute treasure of Irish whiskey and we’re already jealous of whoever triumphs in the auction.
Moving back to Scotland, there’s a fantastic selection of Cadenhead bottlings this month. Highlights include a 13-year-old Laphroaig 1998, a 21-year-old Caol Ila 1991 and a 24-year-old Bruichladdich 1993 - and that’s just for the Islay fans! Keep your eyes peeled for some rare Cadenhead’s Club bottlings among all the goodies, and a very promising Warehouse Tasting edition of Hazelburn 2007 12-year-old, matured full term in a fresh sherry hogshead.
Gordon & MacPhail, as ever, have plenty of goodies worth keeping tabs on too. A small but necessarily brief selection includes the likes of the Connoisseurs Choice Glen Keith 1967 bottled in 1999, a Rare Old bottling of Highland Park 1970 released in 2004, the stunning Book of Kells 50-year-old Mortlach 1936 bottled in the mid-1980s and a vintage Glen Grant 1960 bottled in 1995.
There’s also the rare Old Elgin 1947 mystery single malt bottled in the 1980s - this is often rumoured to be Macallan, though of course there are plenty of other great distilleries within a dozen miles of Elgin, including G&M faves Longmorn and Strathisla. Best of all from G&M this month, though, is an amazing vintage Talisker 1953 bottled in the early 1980s in the iconic black label with the golden eagle. Much of Talisker was destroyed by fire in 1960, so the distillery in 1953 was very different from today, and at the time they were still malting their own barley to make this uncompromisingly full-bodied peppery, minerally, smoky spirit. This is one of the longer-aged examples of these iconic G&M 1980s black label Taliskers, with the whisky likely just under 30 years old.
Miscellaneous indie bottlings to keep an eye out for this month include the likes of Carn Mor’s Cambus 1991 27-year-old single grain whisky, Douglas Laing’s Macallan 1988 21-year-old and a gloriously dark Tamdhu 1989 19-year-old Platinum Selection, a sherry cask bottled at a natural 57.1% back in the halcyon days of 2009.
Closed Distilleries
Let’s start our Closed Distilleries roundup in Japan, as we have some top class Karuizawa this month, including a single cask Karuizawa 1981 Japanese single malt whisky bottled by Number One Drinks back in 2007 at its exceptionally hefty natural cask strength of 58.1%. This was a peated Karuizawa, a gloriously chewy, leathery, smoky, nutty sherry cask that was one of the best of the early bottlings from Number One, picking up a Gold Medal and the Top Japanese Malt gong at the Malt Maniacs Awards in 2007.
Excitingly, we also have a contrasting single bourbon cask Karuizawa 1984, also by Number One Drinks. This one was bottled around its 30th birthday in 2014 as an exclusive for French retailers La Maison du Whisky at its epic cask strength of 58.5% and is one of the finest examples of the rare ex-bourbon cask Karuizawa malts, packed with fruit, menthol, and lovely old tobacco and spice flavours. If you ever get the chance, tasting sherry and bourbon cask Karuizawas side by side is highly recommended, though sadly this privilege is reserved only for the very deep-pocketed nowadays.
Moving to Scotland, and there’s some exceptional old bottlings from the most sought after closed distilleries. Highlights include the superlative Convalmore 1984 32-year-old from 2017’s Diageo Special Releases, and a slew of legendary bottlings from Gordon & MacPhail including Connoisseurs Choice editions of St. Magdalene 1965-1991, Brora 1972-1992 and Rosebank 1991-2009.
Fans of the classic peat and sherry combo, meanwhile, will be chasing a single cask Port Ellen 1982 29-year-old bottled in 2012 by Douglas Laing for their ne plus ultra Platinum Selection. Douglas Laing were releasing blizzards of PE in the first decade of the century, but the vast majority were from refill casks. However, they also had a big stash of sherry butts of the 1982 vintage, the first of which appeared around 2001. By 2012, when this cask was released at a whopping 55.7%, it was clear that these sherried PEs were very special. A glorious symphony of leather, soot and spicy tobacco notes.
Miscellaneous bottlings from lost distilleries include Pernod Ricard’s small batch bottlings of Caperdonich 25-year-old and Caperdonich 30-year-old from 2019, and a very interesting old Signatory Vintage bottling of Millburn 1979, a 17-year-old small batch edition of 6000 bottles assembled in 1996 from a parcel of eight sister sherry casks and bottled for the French market at 43%.
Millburn was a small distillery that closed in 1983, and very little of its spirit had escaped the blending vats by the time the craze for lost distilleries kicked off around the turn of the millennium, so relatively few bottlings exist. As far as we can tell, there have been no new bottlings of Millburn since 2016 (and only two since 2009), so it now seems very likely that the last cask has been bottled. This early indie example from almost thirty years ago is a sprightly, middle-aged treat for fans of old school Inverness drams.
Single Casks
We’ve got an amazing array of single casks for you this month. Beginning with the official bottlings, there’s a rare Auchentoshan 1966 31-year-old, a single hogshead cask bottled in the mid-1990s, and the famous Brora 1972 40-year-old bottled for World of Whiskies in 2012 - this was a phenomenal whisky, bursting with classical old school waxy, tweedy, smoky Brora flavours from a single cask that yielded just 160 bottles at its remarkable cask strength of 59.1%, and has been a unicorn Brora for many collectors ever since.
There’s plenty of outstanding distillery-bottled single casks from more recent times too, with notable gems including a Balvenie 1985 15-year-old, and hand-filled single cask editions of Glendronach 1993, Bowmore 1999 and Glen Garioch 1997. Perhaps best of all in this category, though, is the Balblair 1965 43-year-old, a wonderful American oak sherry butt bottled in 2008 at a natural cask strength of 52.3% that remains both the oldest and the earliest vintage official bottling from this classic old school Highland distillery.
Indie single casks this month include gems like the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s Longmorn 1968 36-year-old, a very dark dram bottled in 2005 at 52.1% in 2005 with the subtitle ‘Candyfloss & Fireworks’ - chances are this was a sherry hogshead, as there were only 207 bottles. That’s not the only great SMWS bottling this month, of course - other gems from the Edinburgh stalwarts include a similarly dark 13-year-old Glenrothes 1990 SMWS 30.42, subtitled Welsh Rarebit and Quince Jelly, and a 12-year-old Glen Grant 1981 bottled way back in 1994 as SMWS 9.11 at a whopping 60.4%.
Finally, there’s some very tempting Duncan Taylor octave cask editions including a Glen Grant 1992 and a Cragganmore 1993, alongside a stack of marvellous First Cask bottlings by Direct Wines, including the likes of Ben Nevis 1990 18-year-old, Dalmore 1990 19-year-old, Bruichladdich 1989 19-year-old, and Cragganmore 1985 22-year-old.
That's it for now - check out the full auction here, thanks for reading and we'd like to wish all our friends and clients a happy festive season and a very prosperous New Year in 2025!