The 176th Auction

Well folks, Christmas has been and gone but not to worry for our 176th auction is now live and bursting with thousands of amazing bottles all vying to be the one which helps you drive those winter blues away!  To get your watchlist moving we’ve picked out a few highlights from the plethora of goodies on offer this month.

The Macallan Cask 888 debuted in Hong Kong at the Lalique Lounge to much fanfare, befitting its status as a limited edition single cask release from one of the world’s most collectable distilleries.  Bearing the prized ‘888’ moniker, a number deemed to be highly fortuitous in Chinese culture, only 720 bottles were made, 24 of which were made available in Hong Kong at the time.

Next up is a fantastic little piece of Scottish material culture, this is the Killyloch 1972 22 Year Old Signatory.  Killyloch distillery made a lightly peated Lowland style whisky that was used exclusively in blends for an exceptionally short period of time, production began in 1965 and ended in the early 1970’s.  With only one official single malt release in 2003, if you want to try this amazing little curio then this incredibly rare indie bottling might be your best chance.

Every month there must be the obligatory ‘I want to drink this immediately’ bottle, and this month’s winner is the Longrow 1998 26 Year Old Society Bottling.  Those lads and lassies in the Society sure know how to pick ‘em, this absolute corker was distilled in 1968 and spent 26 years ageing in refill Oloroso and fresh PX casks.  One of only 485 bottles produced this is a fantastic bottling, and if sweet and smoky is your favourite flavour profile then this one is most certainly for you.

We started with a sherry bomb from a Scottish heavyweight distillery so let’s finish with one too, this is the GlenDronach 1971 43 Year Old Single Cask #2920.  GlenDronach has come a long way since founder James Allardice’s marketing strategy of offering free drams to Edinburgh’s “ladies of night”, and they now produce some of the finest sherried whisky in Scotland.  This beauty has spent an incredible 43 years ageing to perfection in a single PX sherry puncheon, while still retaining a highly respectable ABV of 48.6%.  Perfection doesn’t exist in whisky but if it did it would probably look something like this.

As always we have an enormous selection of drams to suit every budget on offer this month, so now is the time to delve into this month’s offerings and start building that watchlist.  

Best of luck to everyone in the auction, and as always………..don’t lose your bottle.