September Auction Highlights 2019
Welcome to our September Auction! There’s plenty of great stuff this month, with some gems from Macallan, Glenfarclas and Port Ellen, so let’s get started.
We have to start with Black Bowmore 1964 42-Year-Old. This bottle appeared in 2007 as the first bottling of the Bowmore Trilogy. This historic bottling is the oldest Black Bowmore and was from the last of the legendary 1964 Oloroso casks.
No less exciting is Gordon & MacPhail’s Mortlach 1951-2014 Private Collection. At a whopping 63-years-old, it’s one of the oldest ever released and just 61 bottles were yielded from the cask, meaning it’s also one of the rarest. It’s astonishing just how well Mortlach’s spirit can age and the 1951 was met with rapturous reviews on release. The phrase ‘liquid history’ is much overused, but we definitely feel this Mortlach qualifies.
Another headline highlight is this Laphroaig 1968 26-Year-Old – one of the oldest vintage independent Laphroaigs known to exist, this was bottled in the mid-1990s by Hart Brothers. We don’t see a lot of these and the quality should be out of this world, so expect hectic bidding here.
MACALLAN GOODIES
As ever, there’s plenty for Macallan collectors to get excited about. This month we’ve got the Macallan Folio Archival Series 1 and Archival Series 2 plus Masters of Photography Mario Testino Green as well as the explicit and by far the best example from the Rankin series; that features his wife nude at Easter Elchies House. There’s also a Macallan Royal Marriage bottled for Charles and Di in 1981 and a Macallan 1938 Late 1970s and Macallan 1937 Crystal Decanter by G&M.
GREAT GLENFARCLAS
Staying on Speyside, we’ve got some classic Glenfarclases (Glenfarcli?) encompassing both the relatively recent Glenfarclas 1966-2013 46-Year-Old Fino and Glenfarclas 1956-2014 57-Year-Old Sherry alongside older bottlings like Glenfarclas 1973-2002 Sherry Cask 4788, and a few from the Spirit series: Glenfarclas 1978-1998 Spirit of Independence, Glenfarclas 1978 Spirit of Independence Edition 3 and Glenfarclas 22-Year-Old Spirit of the Millennium. There are more Family Casks than you can shake a stick at and the small matter of the 2015 edition Glenfarclas 50-Year-Old Family Collection III as well.
The standout, though, has to be the exceptionally rare Glenfarclas 40 Year Old – this bottling is from 2018 and is one of just 55 bottles produced for the distillery’s distributor, Pol Roger. The bottle is an engraved Glencairn decanter made only for Glenfarclas and this edition was not released to the public, so no doubt competition will be fierce!
BRORANANZA
Brora is getting noticeably thinner on the ground in auctions nowadays and new bottlings have been dwindling for many years, so it’s great to see a flurry of examples from yesteryear crop up this month. The headliners here are the famous Brora 1972 40-Year-Old and this year’s Brora 40-Year-Old 200th Anniversary but there’s also several Rare Malt examples including Brora 1972 22-Year-Old, a couple of SMWS Broras including Brora 1977 61.12 and some affordable indie bottlings from Signatory, First Cask and this rare sherried Brora 1982-2001 bottled by Ian MacLeod’s Chieftain’s series.
OLD FAVOURITES AND CURIOS
There are several old favourites returning this month, including Lagavulin 12-Year-Old White Horse from the early 1980s, plus a very promisingly dark Springbank 15-Year-Old probably bottled in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s and the criminally underrated Talisker 1982-2003 20 Year Old and Port Ellen 25-Year-Old Bladnoch Forum. If you prefer your PEs more classic, there’s also one of the all-time greats: Port Ellen 21-Year-Old Maltings. This fabulous dram is one of the most desirable Port Ellens ever bottled.
This month’s curiosities and rarer bottlings include this exquisite 1960s Moray Bonding Glen Grant 8-Year-Old for Italy, a pair of old Cadenhead’s dumpies, Dufftown-Glenlivet 1966-1980 and Glenlossie-Glenlivet 1966-1984, a couple of bottles of the Balvenie Rose and this rare pear-shaped 1980s Springbank 21-year-Old. The most unusual, though, is probably the Oban 1989-2013 24-Year-Old – a remarkable private single cask from one of Diageo’s most closely-protected distilleries.
