Sotheby’s Whisky & Whiskey | Festive Spirits
and American Classics Achieves $2.3 Million
With 99% of Lots Sold
Historic and Rare Whiskey Captivates Buyers,
Representing Three Record-Breaking Lots in the Sale, Including:
A $200,000 The Glenturret Eight Decades by James Turrell 41.5 ABV
Never Before Seen at Auction
&
A $56,250 LeNell’s Red Hook Rye 23 Year Old Barrel #1 67.6 ABV
&
A $37,500 Rathskeller Rye 136 Proof 1983
Auction Marks the Highest Number of Bids Ever Placed in a Sotheby’s Spirits Sale
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 2023 – Sotheby’s auction of Whisky & Whiskey | Festive Spirits and American Classics concluded on Saturday, realizing a total of $2.3 million, with an impressive 99% of lots sold, and nearly half above their pre-sale high estimates. The sale attracted interest from bidders across 21 countries, with more than 91% of buyers choosing to purchase online.
Speaking after the sale, Jonny Fowle, Global Head of Spirits, said: “This weekend represented a great success for the market, with Sotheby’s final whiskey auction for the year in New York setting a number of new records, not least for Red Hook Rye. This sale garnered the highest number of bids ever placed on a Sotheby’s spirits auction, and contributed to a total of $9M in sales globally over the last 4 weeks alone. We look forward to building upon this result for our first ever Sotheby’s Whiskey Evening Sale on 20 January 2024.”
Saturday’s sale saw exceptional achievements from Bourbon and Rye as well as from prominent collectors in the Spirits industry. Read below for a breakdown of the record-breaking highlights…
The Glenturret Eight Decades by James Turrell 41.5 abv NV (1 BT 70cl), sold for $200,000 (est. $60,000 – $100,000)
The Glenturret, Scotland’s Oldest Working Distillery, presents Eight Decades, a collaboration with Lalique and renowned American artist James Turrell, who is famed worldwide for working with light and space to create artworks that engage viewers with the limits and wonder of human perception.
The Eight Decades decanter was created as a celebration of the artist’s 80th year and a poetic tribute to generations of craftsmanship – both The Glenturret distillery (since 1763), and Lalique’s master glassmakers (since 1888). The shape and colour of the bottle, which has a neck injected with violet crystal, created a technical difficulty for the Lalique artisans in Alsace, ensuring that the crystal be evenly distributed to offer a transparency that would magnify the amber-coloured whisky inside.
The whisky was selected by The Glenturret’s Whisky Maker, Bob Dalgarno using insight from his conversations with James. Drawn from eight casks, ranging from 1987 through to 1998, each represents a different facet of the eight decades of James Turrell’s life, his character and vocation.
Proceeds raised from the sale will be donated to the Roden Crater foundation.
LeNell’s Red Hook Rye 23 Year Old Barrel #1 67.6 ABV, sold for $56,250 (est. $20,000 – $30,000)
In the 2000s, LeNell Santa Ana Camacho owned a specialty liquor store in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Ahead of her time, she reveled in American whiskey: She not only carried brands like Pappy Van Winkle in her shop, but she traveled to Kentucky to see how she could source more. On one of those trips, she met Drew Kulsveen of the Willett distillery; they got to talking, and soon the two were selecting four barrels of rye whiskey, aged between 23 and 24 years and bottled at cask strength. It was a great choice: the barrels came from a legendary run of whiskey distilled at the Bernheim Distillery, in Louisville, in the early 1980s. Other legendary whiskeys came from the same batch, like Rathskeller Rye and the Bitter Truth, but LeNell’s Red Hook Rye has emerged as the most distinctive and sought after American whiskey, perhaps of all time. To top it all off, this bottle is signed by LeNell herself.
Rathskeller Rye 136 Proof 1983 (1 BT 75cl), sold for $37,500 (est. $18,000 – $24,000)
Built by two German immigrants in an opulent European style, the Seelbach is Louisville’s grandest hotel. In its basement sits the Rathskeller, a ceramic-encrusted pub that today is used as a ballroom. In 2007 the hotel’s owners commissioned the Willett Distillery to bottle two whiskeys, a bourbon and a rye, to commemorate its rich history. The 24-year-old rye, known as Rathskeller, came from the same run of whiskey that went into bottles like Doug’s Green Ink and LeNell’s Red Hook Rye – legendary company befitting one of the country’s most desired whiskeys.
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium or overhead premium. Prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium and overhead premium and are net of any fees paid to the purchaser where the purchaser provided an irrevocable bid.
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GlenDronach is one of Scotland’s oldest whisky distilleries, dating back to 1826, but it has been sold, shuttered, and resold several times. Its return to production in 2002 was great news for scotch lovers, and today it’s under the direction of Brown-Forman master blender Dr. Rachel Barrie. This newest iteration is a bold, memorable cask strength, sherry-matured whisky that comes alive in the glass with chewy, zippy notes of leather, cedar, and honey, then a wisp of flinty gun – powder accents the sweet finish. This sherry-finished scotch is the kind of drink that cries out for a beautiful cigar on a cold winter night. (DS) 
