July Auction Highlights 2025
Welcome to our July 2025 Whisky-Online Auction highlights blog! We’ve got some tremendous whiskies to tell you about in this month’s sale, from distilleries including Macallan, Glenfarclas, Karuizawa, Port Ellen and Glen Grant, so we’re going to get straight into it.
Distillery Bottlings
We've got some amazing Distillery Bottlings in this month's whisky auction, including a slew of official Macallans. Highlights include an early bottling of Macallan 18-year-old from the 1967 vintage - this was bottled very early in the history of the blue riband Macallan 18-year-old editions, which had first appeared as a 1965 vintage bottling in 1984. Macallan in those days aged sherries in their casks for at least two years before filling them with whisky, ensuring the oak had absorbed generous quantities of top quality sherry.
Also benefitting from this quality-driven cask policy was an early Macallan 1963 25-year-old Anniversary Selection bottled in 1988 at a gentle but flavour-packed 43%. The Anniversary Selection 25-year-old Macallans had first appeared a few years before in 1983 (retailing for the princely sum of £25); these early bottles were among the most prestigious available to single malt whisky fans throughout the 1980s and have never been surpassed in quality, with the 1960s and early 1970s vintages in particular acknowledged as among the finest Speyside whiskies ever bottled.
We also have another of the glory days bottlings from Macallan - the magnificent Macallan 1965 25-year-old Anniversary Selection, which was released in 1990. Macallan was pretty much peerless as far as official bottlings go in the 1990s with a string of extraordinary batches of both the 18-year-old and 25-year-old releases, made up of casks filled in the distillery’s golden age in the 1960s and 1970s. These mid-1960s vintage 25-year-olds represent a distillery at the height of its powers.
Finally for Macallan, there's an exceptionally rare bottling of Macallan 12-year-old Speyside single malt whisky bottled in the 1980s for defunct UK defence company British Aerospace, with a custom front label and presentation box featuring the BAe Jetstream 31 airplane flying over Culzean Castle.
It’s not clear how many of these special edition Macallan 12-year-olds were produced for British Aerospace, but it’s known that some bottles were supplied on delivery of the Jetstream planes in the 1980s. A version of Macallan 25-year-old Anniversary was bottled with the same Jetstream label in 1989 and Macallan and British Aerospace also teamed up for another aircraft label bottling featuring the company’s ATP Advanced Turboprop. These Macallan / British Aerospace bottlings are now extremely hard to find and are highly sought after by both whisky fans and airplane aficionados.
Moving overseas, we have a handful of very interesting bourbons this month, with highlights including a very rare British import bottle of Old Grand-Dad Kentucky straight bourbon imported by historic wine & spirit merchants W&A Gilbey, who merged with Justerini & Brooks in 1962 to form International Distillers & Vintners. This version was sold in Duty Free markets at London airports by Forte’s in the 1960s.
Old Grand-Dad is made by Jim Beam nowadays, but in the 1960s the brand’s whiskey was produced at the Old Taylor distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, which was abandoned in 1972 but later revived as the Castle & Key distillery. This month's sale also features some classic bourbons from the likes of Pappy Van Winkle and Rock Hill Farms.
For the blended Scotch whisky fans, meanwhile, we’ve got a wonderful old bottle of White Horse blended Scotch whisky bottled in 1949. The White Horse blend at this time would have contained whisky not only from the company’s Craigellachie and Lagavulin distilleries, but is also likely to include some malt whisky from the near Malt Mill distillery, which White Horse creator Peter Mackie had constructed on the grounds of Lagavulin in 1908 in a vain attempt to replicate Laphroaig. Malt Mill was in operation until 1960, ensuring these old White Horse bottlings from the immediate postwar period are highly prized by aficionados for their content as well as their beautiful design aesthetic.
Blended Scotch whisky fans will also be keeping close tabs on the rare Johnnie Walker Director’s Blend Scotch whisky. This is the 2012 edition of JW Director’s Blend, the fifth of six Director’s Blend bottlings that appeared between 2008-2013, and was an edition of just 504 bottles at 43%. Crafted by Master Blender Jim Beveridge and carrying his signature and that of Global Brand Director Gavin Pike, this 2012 Johnnie Walker Director’s Blend is highly sought after by collectors, as these annual release small batch whiskies were never put on sale but were given as gifts to Diageo staff and selected VIPs.
We'll close this section with a couple of gems from Speyside. First up, we have a wonderful old bottle of Glenfarclas 15-year-old. This is the square bottle presentation from the 1970s and early 1980s, and this edition is particularly unusual as it is bottled at 45%. Official bottlings of Glenfarclas 15-year-old from the 1970s were usually bottled at 46%, and although there are also versions at 40%/70 proof and 43%, the 45% versions are particularly rare.
The square bottles of Glenfarclas are almost universally excellent, and the distillery’s 15-year-old has long been the aficionado’s favourite from the Glenfarclas range. This 45% version, which was likely distilled around the early to mid 1960s when the distillery still had its own maltings and used coal to direct fire the stills, will be magnificent.
Finally, there's the single cask Balvenie 1974 25-year-old Single Barrel edition. This version is from single barrel 14992, which was selected and bottled in 2000. The 1974 vintage was a particularly fine year at Balvenie and the distillery bottled dozens of these single casks as 25-year-olds between 2000-2003 at their hearty preferred strength of 46.9%. These long-aged Single Barrel vintage Balvenies from the 1970s are fantastic drams and make great vintage birthday gifts.
That's it for this section, but check out the rest of the Distillery Bottlings in this month's sale here, including gems from Springbank, Longrow, Tamnavulin and more.
Independent Bottlings
We'll start our Independent Bottling highlights with a bang: A fantastic limited edition Karuizawa 1999/2000 Japanese single malt whisky sometimes known as Double Vintage Unique Cuvée. This was a small batch edition released in 2023 to celebrate the 55th Anniversary of legendary Italian bottler Silvano Samaroli.
This special edition Karuizawa was the product of two individual oloroso sherry hogsheads from the 1999 and 2000 vintages that were married together and sent to Scotland, where they were finished for the last few months before bottling in a Pedro Ximenez sherry cask that had previously held Caol Ila. Karuizawa 1999/2000 arrives in an olive wood box with a superb handblown glass decanter by renowned Murano glassmaker Simone Cenedese and was an edition of just 211 bottles at an impressive 56.5% natural cask strength.
There's also a remarkable Glen Grant 1948 released by Gordon & MacPhail in 2018 a few months after its 70th birthday. Cask 2154 was a first fill sherry butt distilled in June 1948 and bottled over seven decades later in October 2018, becoming the oldest ever Glen Grant bottling at the time and yielding 210 bottles at a still remarkably hearty 48.6%. The extraordinary longevity of Glen Grant’s spirit has been proven by G&M time and again, and this famous 70-year-old edition is one of the best examples - the whisky is packed with rich sherry and exotic fruit and even has a subtle thread of peatsmoke thanks to the postwar coal shortages. A stunning old Glen Grant from G&M.
Staying with G&M, there's an interesting old bottle of Glenlossie 1968 12-year-old bottled in the very early 1980s by Gordon & MacPhail for their Connoisseurs Choice range, which was in its brown label phase at the time. Built in the 1870s, Glenlossie is a large Speyside workhorse distillery used by owners DCL (and later Diageo) to supply high quality grassy Speyside malt whisky for their blends, particularly Haig Gold Label.
Along with some examples from Cadenhead’s, these Connoisseurs Choice editions from G&M were among the earliest known bottlings of Glenlossie as a single malt whisky - the first official bottling didn’t appear until almost a decade later, with the arrival of the Flora & Fauna 10-year-old.
G&M have also got a wonderful old Caol Ila 1969 in this month's sale, bottled as a 16-year-old Connosseurs Choice edition in the mid-1980s, while the Scotch Malt Whisky Society chip in with a pair of delightful young Rosebank 1990 single casks bottled at 10 and 12 years old just after the turn of the century.
Closed Distilleries
We have some amazing old bottles from Scotland's Closed Distilleries this month. Let's start on Islay with a single cask Port Ellen 1982 30-year-old Islay single malt whisky bottled in 2012 without colouring or chill filtration by indie bottlers Ian Macleod for their Chieftain’s Choice series. Distilled in May 1982 during the original distillery’s penultimate year of production, Cask 1518 was a single hogshead cask bottled in October 2012, yielding a generous 308 bottles at an impressive natural cask strength of 50.1%. These late vintage Port Ellens were often filled to quite inactive wood, ageing very slowly but developing superbly between 20-30 years old.
We also have a single cask from the closed Dallas Dhu distillery. This 1982 vintage cask was bottled as a 24-year-old in 2007 by Historic Scotland, who ran Dallas Dhu as a distillery museum after it was closed in 1983, before handing over the reins to Aceo Ltd in 2024 to restore the distillery to operational condition. Let’s hope that the new regime can produce more epic drams like this full strength beauty, a leathery, spicy old school Speysider bottled from a single sherry cask with an outturn of 590 bottles at an epic 56.3% natural strength.
Elsewhere, there's some great Glenlochy in this month's sale, including a single cask Glenlochy 1980 24-year-old bottled by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society in 2005 shortly before its 25th birthday with the code SMWS 62.12 and the subtitle ‘Charming but Frivolous’. Glenlochy is one of the most obscure of the closed Diageo distilleries but the casks that survived its 1983 closure are frequently superb, and this 24-year-old Glenlochy 1980 is one of the finest example, an austere, waxy, old school Highland whisky with an eye-watering cask strength of 60.4%.
Glenlochy fans are spoilt for choice this month, as we've also got another Glenlochy 1980 27-year-old single cask bottled at full strength by Signatory Vintage in 2008. Cask 2823 was one of over a dozen absolutely superb 1980 Glenlochys bottled by Signatory between 2005-2015, and was a hogshead cask that yielded a total of 231 bottles at a sturdy 53.9% cask strength. The Glenlochy site was demolished and replaced with a hotel soon after the distillery's closure in 1983, so these wonderful old drams are all that remain of this seriously underrated lost distillery.
Miscellaneous drams from lost distilleries this month include the famous Hillside (Glenesk) 1969 25-year-old Rare Malts Edition bottled at 60.1% in the mid-1990s, plus Signatory Vintage's amazing Caperdonich 1970 38-year-old, Cadenhead's 14-year-old St. Magdalene 1982 bottled at a whopping 58.7% in 1997 and Clan Denny's Port Dundas 1978 34-year-old single grain whisky released at a delightful drinking strength of 52.2% in 2012, just two years after the distillery had closed for good.
Single Casks
Official Single Cask bottlings in this month's sale include a very rare Glenglassaugh 1963, which came from a single bourbon barrel bottled as a 51-year-old in 2014 at its natural came strength of 41.7%, but the main action in the single cask front this month comes from the indies.
Single cask indie highlights this month feature another magnificent Glen Grant from Gordon & MacPhail's Private Collection: Glen Grant 1950 65-year-old Cask 2747, which was bottled back in 2015 without colouring or chill filtration by Gordon & MacPhail as a special prestige edition for Polish consultants Wealth Solutions.
Cask 2747 was an extraordinary sherry butt filled with Glen Grant’s famously sturdy and long-ageing spirit in October 1950 and bottled soon after its 65th birthday in 2015. Remarkably, despite the butt yielding only 218 bottles, the whisky had retained an astonishingly high natural cask strength of 59.3%, preserving Glen Grant’s beautiful distillery character despite the sherry influence.
There's some more tremendous single casks from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society too, with the pick of the bunch being the single cask Glenfarclas 1966 Speyside single malt whisky bottled back in 2004 as a 37-year-old with the SMWS code 1.117 and the soubriquet ‘A Malt For The Study’. As with all the SMWS bottlings, this lovely old Glenfarclas was bottled without colouring or chill filtration at its natural cask strength - in this case, a hearty 50.2%, with a rumoured yield of 192 bottles from what we believe to have been a refill hogshead cask.
Miscellaneous single casks to look our for include a privately-bottled Springbank 1996 21-year-old, a 40-year-old Linkwood 1980 Private Collection by G&M, and Douglas Laing's tremendous Macallan 1990 20-year-old refill hogshead bottled for the Old & Rare Platinum Selection in 2011.
That's it for this month's Whisky-Online Auction Highlights - check out the full sale here, Good Luck and Happy Bidding!