The 96th Auction

Can we get a drum roll please…? This month we have broken our record - in fact a world record - with the largest amount of scotch ever sold in one single auction!! Yes, well over 10,000 bottles are on board the Scotch Whisky Malt Cruise.Let’s not keep you waiting as we have a lot to talk about in all things Scotch.

SWA are delighted to offer another release from Glasgow Distillery. During this auction, Glasgow Distillery 1770 Release No. 2 is available to purchase on our website. By using the ‘Buy It Now’ button throughout the auction you will be able to get your hands on the 2019 release! This is a fantastic chance to own this latest release and is a one-time opportunity!

Okay whisky connoisseurs, sit down and get strapped in cos we’ve got some seriously aged whisky to talk about! I think we can all agree that Gordon & MacPhail are some of the finest curators of cask management. In this auction, we are lucky enough to have a healthy abundance of G&M’s finest Private Collection to date. To rattle off just a few, there is a Linkwood 1965 60 Year Old, Glenlivet 1943 70 Year Old, and a Mortlach 1939 75 Year Old! We also have a fantastic set of bottles from twin casks that were filled on the same day in 1965; however, as with the twin brothers Stuart and Richard Urquhart, the whiskies produced were distinctly different with one cask being a first fill American Oak Sherry hogshead and the other a first fill European Oak Sherry hogshead.

Speaking of some seriously matured juice, for the first time we have the Bowmore 1965 52 Year Old. This is the third release in Bowmore’s 50-Year-Old Vault Series and what a colour it is! This gem has been aging for over half a century in one single Oloroso Sherry cask and was some of the first spirit to pass through Bowmore’s then new steam-heated stills.

Another first for us here - and standing out to us because we love the label artwork - is a Macallan 1993 from German bottlers Sansibar. However, if this contemporary bottling doesn’t float your boat, then why not bust your buck out on a Macallan Select Reserve 1948 51 Year Old. Yet again this has been maturing for over half a century with each of the 366 bottles filled on a different day of the year.

Now lets not get too bogged down with all these mature bottles! We also would like to mention one of Highland Park’s first special bottlings for the Hotel Waldhaus am See, St Moritz. The Alpine hotel is home to a fantastic wine cellar and the world’s largest whisky bar with 2500 different whiskies. This is not a standard expression from the Orkney distillery and is considered extremely rare to match the illustriousness of the bar itself.

Finally another curveball, however certainly worth a victorious mention is The Great Islay Swim Explorer’s Cask with Corryvreckan Water. In July 2017, Explorers Club Members, Chad Anderson and Justin Fornal accompanied by Suntory Ambassador, Johnnie Mundell completed the world’s first swim around the 100-mile coastline of Islay carrying with them a 30 gallon oak cask, filling it incrementally at each of the island’s active distilleries. After marrying for several months, the whisky was bottled and sold with all proceeds going towards the RNLI in Islay. In keeping with their incredibly fundraising, proceeds from the sale of this bottle will go to the Finlaggan Trust. What a fantastic story and a perfect way to sail into this auction.

So let’s weigh anchor, set sail and don’t lose your bottle!