February Whisky Auction Highlights 2025
Welcome to our February 2025 Whisky-Online Auction Highlights Blog! There’s all kinds of wonderful stuff to tell you about from distilleries like Port Ellen, Longmorn, Glen Grant and Lagavulin, so we’d best crack on.
First though, we’ve found an incredible haul of late 1930s Scotch whisky - no fewer than 20 bottles of Mackinlay’s 12-year-old ‘ML” Liqueur Scotch Whisky bottled in 1939! The whiskies in this blend must have been distilled no later than 1927, and the firm of Charles Mackinlay was associated with the Inverness distilleries Glen Albyn and Glen Mhor, so it’s very likely that they made up a significant part of the malt proportion of the blend. We have a full wooden case complete with an Excise Certificate dated from September 1939, and a further eight individual bottle lots. Check out the full story, including Mackinlay’s links to legendary explorer Ernest Shackleton on our special blogpost here.
We've also got a full cask of Bruichladdich 2004 - a fresh bourbon barrel that has retained 142 bulk litres of delicious 20-year-old Bruichladdich at a hefty 59.3% (strength and volume correct as per a regauge in January 2025). Cask 639 is currently sitting in bond in Bruichladdich's warehouses and the spirit will turn 21 years old on 30th June this year.
Official Bottlings
There’s all kinds of wonderful official distillery bottlings coming under the hammer this month. Highlights include a very fine example of Glenfiddich Special Pure Malt, a 1950s OB that pre-dates the famous triangular bottles that have been synonymous with the distillery since the 1960s. As ever, there’s also some great Macallan coming up for grabs, including 2018’s Macallan Genesis, the 2022 releases of Macallan 25-year-old and Macallan 30-year-old Sherry Cask, and a host of top class older bottles including a Macallan 1963 Special Selection from the early 1980s and the brilliant 1980s version of Macallan 10-year-old 100-Proof, bottled at a mighty 57%.
Staying on Speyside, we have the famous and hard to find Strathisla 25-year-old, a limited edition of just 600 bottles released to celebrate the distillery’s restoration in 1995, while up in the Highlands we’ve got some superb Glenmorangies including 2004’s Glenmorangie 30-year-old Oloroso Sherry Cask edition and several limited editions and small batches including the rare Glenmorangie 1974 and 1979 vintage bottlings released in the 1990s.
Over on Islay meanwhile there are some absolutely stunning bottles waiting for your bids. Top of the class for this month is the second edition of the original Black Bowmore trilogy. This Bowmore 1964 30-year-old Islay single malt whisky was released in 1994 and, like its predecessor, was an edition of just 2000 bottles matured in what must have been some of the most ridiculously high quality Oloroso sherry casks ever seen in Scotland. All the original Black Bowmores are stunning whiskies, but the second edition is regarded by many of the cognoscenti as the first among equals.
Other great Islay malts in this month’s sale include a pair of small batch Lagavulin 1995 vintage editions bottled for the Feis Ile in 2013 and 2014, and an early ‘Unblended’ edition of Laphroaig 15-year-old bottled in 1985, while over the water in Campbeltown this month’s Springbanks include a very rare and desirable pale Springbank 15-year-old from the turn of the 1990s in the classic old round dumpy bottle with the J. Archibald Mitchell label.
Miscellaneous distillery bottlings worth checking out in this month’s auction include a limited edition distillery-only Blair Athol Flora & Fauna bottled in 2019 at 48%, hard to find Rare Malts editions of Royal Lochnagar 1972 and Craigellachie 1973 (the latter being one of the last Craigellachie OBs from Diageo before the distillery was sold to Bacardi) and a string of interesting releases from newer distilleries including Eden Mill, Holyrood, Annandale, Wolfburn and Nc’Nean.
Independent Bottlings
There are some wonderful independent bottlings to choose from this month. Highlights from Gordon & MacPhail include a Distillery Labels Linkwood 1946 36-year-old bottled in the early 1980s, the magnificent Mortlach 1936 50-year-old Book of Kells edition bottled in 1986 and an extraordinary 60-year-old Glen Grant 1950 bottled from a pair of first fill and refill sherry casks.
Top of the G&M class for this month, though, is a Macallan 1945 Speymalt. This incredible whisky matured in a pair of first fill sherry hogsheads and was bottled as a 68-year-old in 2013 at 45.1%. Another sister cask was bottled a few years later in 2016 as the first ever Macallan 70-year-old.
There’s an amazing selection of Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottlings this month, with brief highlights including 1980s vintages of Craigellachie, Cameronbridge, Tomatin and Cragganmore, plus a promisingly dark Bruichladdich 1993 bottled from a port pipe in 2003 with the subtitle ‘Pinky & Perky’.
Miscellaneous indie bottlings this month include a rare Glencadam 1972 bottled as a 29-year-old for First Cask and Hunter Laing’s marvellous Craigellachie 1995, a 21-year-old from a refill sherry butt that yielded just 60 bottles back in 2017.
Closed Distilleries
There’s some beauties from closed distilleries this month. Dallas Dhu seems to be one of the more obscure closed distilleries nowadays - having closed in 1983 and with only five new bottlings appearing in the last decade, it’s likely that stocks are now just about exhausted. Thankfully, the distillery should hopefully be reopening soon after the announcement last year by stewards Historic Scotland that the site is being prepared for distillation to recommence under the aegis of Aceo Spirits.
We’ve got some very interesting Dallas Dhu bottlings this month, including Historic Scotland’s official single cask Dallas Dhu 1982 24-year-old released in 2007, Signatory Vintage’s Dallas Dhu 1977 21-year-old released in 1999, and an excellent small batch Dallas Dhu 1975 released by Gordon & MacPhail in 2007 under what is now known as the Distillery Labels series.
Elsewhere we have an 18-year-old Port Ellen 1976 by First Cask and a Port Ellen 1982 from Mackillop’s Choice bottled as a 31-year-old in 2014. And while we’re on the subject of recently revived classic ‘lost’ distilleries, there’s some interesting old Rosebank too in the form of G&M’s Connoisseurs Choice Rosebank 1991, bottled from a mix of bourbon and refill sherry casks in 2009, and The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s younger Rosebank 1992 SMWS 25.31 ‘Strawberry Sherbert’ , an 11-year-old bottled in 2003 at its exceptionally hefty cask strength of 59.4%.
Other lost gems from our amazing stash of SMWS bottles this month include a highly promising 23-year-old Inverleven 1978 SMWS 20.17, bottled at 57.1% in 2002 with the subtitle Soor Plooms and Pink Grapefruit, and the magnificent SMWS 92.6, an extremely dark 32-year-old Lochside 1966 bottled at a massive 62.3% in 1998, just a few years after the distillery had closed for good. The Society only ever bottled ten casks of Lochside and all of them are absolutely brilliant drams.
Miscellaneous gems from closed distilleries this month include the fantastic 45-year-old Mosstowie 1973 bottled by Signatory Vintage for their 30th Anniversary in 2018, and a single cask Karuizawa 1972, which is one of the rarest ever vintages of Karuizawa - this fantastic sherry butt is one of only five known bottlings of Karuizawa 1972, and was released by Number One Drinks in 2011 at a mind-boggling 63.3%.
Single Casks
Our single casks this month are an interesting contrast between new distilleries and some amazing old bottles, particularly from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Single casks from new or relatively recent distilleries this month include Fruitful Spirits’ Bonnington 2020 Heavily Peated First Release, a heavily-charred new oak cask at a whopping 64.8%, and we also have interesting early single casks from Ballindalloch and the English whisky distilleries Cotswolds and Bimber.
Back in Scotland, official single cask highlights this month include some great Glenmorangies such as the Glenmorangie 1987 Distillery Manager’s Choice bottled in 2001 at 57.2% - this was an ex-bourbon cask that was finished for almost three years in a port pipe, so it’s basically a cask strength single cask version of the distillery’s classic Port Finish expression. There’s also a fantastic long-aged prestige edition Glenrothes 1976, a refill hogshead bottled in 2015 at 47.4%, some great private casks of Arran and Springbank and a red wine cask Chichibu 2014 bottled in 2022 at a very hefty 59.5%.
Indie single cask highlights are pretty abundant this month but a small selection includes Blair Athol single casks from the 1973 and 1976 vintages bottled by Direct Wines for their First Cask series, plus Signatory Vintage’s 27-year-old Glen Grant 1976 bottled from a single sherry butt in 2003 and Gordon & MacPhail’s magnificent Macallan 1950 Speymalt, a refill sherry butt bottled as a 55-year-old in 2006.
A special mention this month, once again though, for The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, with a string of mouth-watering single casks from classic distilleries. These include SMWS 9.26, a refill sherry butt of Glen Grant 1970 released in 2001, an amazing 40-year-old Glenfarclas 1965 bottled at 57.6% in 2005, and the famously dark and chewy Longmorn 1968 36-year-old ‘Rasta Malt’.
The cherry on top this month, though, has to be the Society’s first ever bottling of Lagavulin. SMWS 111.1 was an Oloroso sherry cask of Lagavulin 1980, bottled up in 1995 as a 15-year-old at its absolutely outrageous natural cask strength of 63.3% - 110.7 UK Imperial Proof(!), and you don’t need a crystal ball to know that this legendary bottle will be one of the most fiercely-contested lots in the whole auction.
That’s it for this month’s Whisky-Online Auction Highlights - check out the full auction here, Good Luck and Happy Bidding!