Fancy tipple

An American Hogshead Cask from the Macallan Distillery filled in 1996 sold for HK$3,430,000 (€395,838) recently at a Bonhams auction in Hong Kong to an absentee bidder against active bidding in the room, surpassing the original estimate of HK$2,200,000 (€253,884). 

The new Macallan benchmark was set against the previous sale of a 30 year-old Sherry Hogshead Cask from Macallan Distillery filled in 1987 which sold for HK$2,928,000 (€337,900) at auction in October 2017.

“Not only has this 22 year-old cask reached the highest record price realised at auction” explained Daniel Lam, Director of Wine & Whisky, Asia, “but it’s also the most valuable per bottle cask sold in auction worldwide and is expected to produce 310 bottles valued at HK$11,064 (€1,277) per bottle.”

Bonhams broke the world record for the most expensive bottle of whisky sold at auction on three separate occasions in 2018 and set a new world record for the most expensive bottle of Japanese whisky ever sold at auction.
The Hong Kong sale, Bonhams’ largest to date, offered more than 1,100 lots and concluded with a robust total of HK$41, 219,168 (€4.76 million).

Not bad for a day’s work.