Auction Extravaganza of the Year: The Distillers One of One Raises $2.18 Million in Scotland

A bid of over half a million dollars for a bottle of Bowmore led The Distillers One of One auction, which raised a combined hammer price of $2.18 million on October 5^th, living up to its billing as the auction high point of the year. The second biannual collection of one-off scotch whisky creations went under the hammer in partnership with Sotheby’s at Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, with proceeds benefiting the Youth Action Fund of The Distillers’ Charity. With pre-sale estimates of $1.25–$2.25 million, the sale consisted of 39 lots sold with no reserves, encompassing 56 bottles and 9 casks donated directly from whisky companies across the industry.

There were oldest-ever whisky releases aplenty from distillers including Bowmore, Brora, Old Pulteney, Glenglassaugh, Macduff, and Kilchoman distilleries. Numerous lots contained large format bottles that included miniatures for tasting and the additional promise of unique distillery or tasting experiences for the winning bidders. Highlights included the Bowmore STAC 1955 62 year old ($546,995), a 1.5 liter hand-blown glass decanter inspired by Soldier’s Rock, a sea stack off the coast of the Oa peninsula on Islay, Brora Iris 1972 50 year old ($388,974) with the 1.5 liter-bottle fashioned into the pupil, not the iris, of a wildcat’s eye set within a stone sculpture, a stunning Battuto glass magnum of Glen Grant The Visionary 1955 68 year old ($206,643), and Old Pulteney Bow Wave 45 year old ($66,855), a 1.5-liter decanter presented on a plinth of Caithness slate whose cuts evoke the feel of crashing waves of the North. Presented in a French crystal carafe, the Macduff 1971 52 year old single cask bottling ($15,802) was only the second release to carry the distillery's name; its whisky is normally bottled as Glen Deveron. Glenmorangie offered a 1995 single cask ($24,311) selected and signed by Dr. Bill Lumsden with the winner being offered a luxurious two-night stay and VIP distillery tour.

Christmas at Hazelwood ($46,191) contained a 51 year old blend residing within a bespoke advent calendar house crafted from sycamore, walnut, and brass based on the ancestral home of the Gordons, the family that owns William Grant & Sons. The drawers were packed with 24 different House of Hazelwood miniatures, one for every release bottled to date. The Coronation of King Charles III was the inspiration for the Royal Salute donation ($19,449); the blend was enhanced by the addition of liquid from the Royal Salute 1962 Reserve Cask, while Duncan Taylor offered a Trilogy of Laphroaig Fit for Royalty ($24,311) containing the same Islay whiskies that the company presented to the new King and Queen. This was the best-performing lot of the auction relative to its pre-sale estimate of $2,430–$4,255.

The Last Drop Distillers offered a blending experience at Scone Palace, Scotland with master blender Colin Scott ($58,346) where the winning bidder will create 12 bottles of unique blended scotch using The Last Drop Distillers’ stocks of grain and malt whiskies aged from 30 years to over 50 years. The firsts included a bottle drawn from Cask No.1 of Kilchoman ($14,587) filled on 14^th December 2005, and the first bottle of Edinburgh’s Holyrood Distillery inaugural release ($9,724). The cask of Bruichladdich Bere Barley filled in 2013 and the cask of Girvan 1989 single grain both sold for $36,466 a piece, the highest price paid for whisky casks at this year’s auction. Overall, the average hammer price for a bottle was $35,500 and the average hammer price for a cask was $21,542.

With The Distillers One of One auction’s reputation firmly established in the auction scene for its charitable endeavors, ability to set new brand records, as well as its competitive extravaganza of contemporary scotch whisky design, the world’s foremost whisky collectors will be eagerly anticipating what the distilleries will bring to the next event in 2025.