S otheby’s is delighted to present its first Whisky & Whiskey sale of the year in New York which is led by the latest in a long line of partnerships between Sotheby’s and The Macallan Distillery, The Macallan Distil Your World New York Single Cask Edition. Also on offer are The Macallan 52 Year Old and 50 Year Old, as well as American Whiskey in the form of Pappy Van Winkle single barrels and the notorious LeNell's Red Hook Rye.
Sotheby’s has once again partnered directly with The Macallan Distillery to bring to auction an exclusive, limited edition version of The Macallan’s recent release of Distil Your World New York, a whisky that captures the essence of one of the most iconic cities in the world. This auction offers collectors the first and only opportunity to acquire one of two bottles created of this single cask whisky, with the second bottle to be kept in The Macallan archive, never to be sold.
This extraordinary lot includes a limited edition version of the Distil Your World New York bottle, produced from a single sherry seasoned oak puncheon cask distilled in 2002 and bottled at cask strength, housed in a limited-edition, striking blue presentation box featuring an engraved aerial map of New York. Also included is a booklet about the bottle and Distil Your World New York series that is signed by the talent featured in the Distil Your World New York documentary that aired with the release of the original bottle.
All proceeds from the sale of this lot will benefit ChaShaMa, a non-profit arts organization based in New York City that nurtures artists by transforming unused real estate into affordable work and presentation spaces.
Other Scotch Whisky highlights also come from The Macallan, in the form of The Macallan 52 Year Old, Macallan 50 Year Old and Macallan 40 Year Olds, all released by the distillery between 2016 and 2018.
One of only 250 bottles, The Macallan 52 Year Old was put together by Whisky Maker Sarah Burgess and bottled at 48% from a single, first-fill European oak sherry seasoned cask. The whisky is presented in a luxurious solid oak box, featuring an etched face and inlaid with a matte gold badged age statement and displays rich fruit and dark chocolate fondant characters.
The Macallan 50 Year Old was also bottled from a single European sherry oak butt, this time with an outurn of just 200 bottles. Created by Master Distiller Nick Savage, the whisky is full of sweet oak vanilla notes, fudge and toffee, which give the spirit an incredibly viscous mouth coating, with a long and slightly dry finish from the subtle peat notes.
The youngest of the trio, The Macallan 40 Year Old was released in 2016 and began life from a total of 27 sherry seasoned oak casks which had been carefully selected from 9 different years of distillation and laid down to mature. Most of the precious spirit from the 27 casks was combined and then filled into nine marrying casks at customary marrying strength, however a tenth cask was also filled and laid back down. Already matured for three decades, the whisky in this refill butt was kept at its natural strength. Finally, in 2016 at 40 years of age, the time had come to release this incredibly rare and precious spirit.
Aside from The Macallan, two smaller Scottish distilleries provide further highlights. We are delighted to offer a bottle of Springbank 21 Year Old 100 Proof, bottled in the 1970s and scored a whopping 95 Points by Serge Valentin on Whiskyfun. Also available is a Bowmore Black First Release, distilled in 1964 and bottled in 1993, and currently regarded as one of the greatest whiskies ever produced (96 Points, Whiskyfun).
After the tremendous success of Sotheby’s American Whiskey sale in December, in which a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old 2008 Release fetched an incredible $52,000, more than 17 times the pre-sale estimate, this sale provides an opportunity for collectors to bid on some even rare bottles of ‘Pappy’, as well as a multitude of whiskies from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection and the legendary LeNell’s Red Hook Rye.
Sotheby’s is delighted to offer not one, but two single barrel picks of Pappy Van Winkle's 23 Year Old Family Reserve, distilled in 1984 and bottled in 2007. Two of the rarest bottles of American Whiskey ever bottled, they present an opportunity for collectors to capture both single barrel picks in one sale, a chance which is few and far between.
Also from the Van Winkle stable comes a ‘green glass’ bottle of Pappy Van Winkle's 20 Year Old Family Reserve, from Lwrenceberg Stitzel-Weller stock, and bottled before 1999 when the glass was changed from green to clear. This bottle is signed by Julian Van Winkle III. The sale includes over 80 bottles of Van Winkle including these older releases, as well as vertical and double vertical sets of the 2022 Release.
Aside from Van Winkle, there are over 40 lots from The Buffalo Trace Antique collection, with releases dating back to 2007 as well as a full set of five bottles from 2022.
One of the most venerable bottles of American Whiskey is LeNell's Red Hook Rye 23 Year Old, with barrel #3 included in this sale. LeNell’s liquor store in Red Hook, Brooklyn, selected four barrels of 1984 vintage Rye that were lying in Willet’s Warehouse G in Bardstown and bottled each without chill filtration at cask strength at 23 and 24 years old. In total, across all four of LeNell’s single barrel releases, only 852 bottles exist, making it one of the rarest American Whiskeys ever produced.
Other highlights include Michter’s Small Batch Bourbon 20 Year Old and Michter's Single Barrel Bourbon 25 Year Old (both offered with no reserve), the A.H. Hirsch Reserve 16 Year Old 1974, both the Blue Wax and Gold Wax versions, and a set of the first 6 releases of WhistlePig The Boss Hog.
