With the results of their most recent auction still pending, WhiskyAuction is already pressing ahead with the next in their series of sales.
Offering an impressive range of drams from Highland, Lowland and island alike (including nearly 300 miniature lots), the auction is generating a great deal of interest far ahead of its mid-October close.
Previously, the top lots have been a bottle of 50 year old Springbank and a 1993 Black Bowmore (not the new 2007 edition).
Two well-aged beauties in the sale hail from Longmorn, each having entered a cask back in 1972.
One, of the Gordon & MacPhail brand, reached 34 years of age before its bottling in 2006. The 45% spirit has already inched its way to €215 and will probably achieve far more.
The other, of The Perfect Dram, was bottled just this year (one of just 231 bottles), and weighs in at a heavy 51.3%. It carries a €235 bid, and this is even more likely to increase.
The overall highlight, however - and a real gem - is an original 2004 bottling from a 1972 cask of Ardbeg Bourbon Hogshead noted as commemorating the 30th Business Anniversary of Michael Madsen (presumably not the veteran of Quentin Tarantino films).
Bottle number 105 of 245 of the dram they call Ping no 1 from Cask no 2780 is of a stock which was rated at 97 out of 100 by Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, and as Murray has never handed out a perfect score this is about as close to perfection has the renowned whisky taster has acknowledged.
After musing on the sweet peats, levels of barley and touches of vanilla, mocha and muscovado sugar he concludes:
"This is a lithe and living whisky, showing shape and form from nose to the longest of finishes; there'll be another scramble to Copenhagen when the world gets wind of this one...sadly I didn't get this until just after the last Bible went to press: as an October 04 bottling this might have won Whisky of the Year..."
The bottle currently languishes at a relatively cheap €906 - it'll be an amazing investment if it falls for that price.
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