Highland Park whiskies go under the hammer

One of the rarest bottles of Highland Park whisky was sold for over £30,000 when it went under the hammer this week.

A bottle of the distillery’s 50-year-old single malt, one of only 275 bottles, fetched £31,460 — more than £5,000 over its estimate.

The bottle was included in a multi-million pound whisky collection described as The Ultimate Whisky Collection which came up for auction at London auction house Sotheby’s.

The entire collection of 467 bottles sold for £7,635,619 — almost double the pre-auction estimate.

The 50-year-old Highland Park was a limited release and has a striking bottle design, being enveloped by handcrafted sterling silver containing a replica of the Rose Window from St Magnus Cathedral and the distillery’s logo carved from Orcadian sandstone.

Also selling for above its asking price at £8,470 was a Samaroli 30th edition 30-year-old Highland Park from 1968.

Nine bottles from the Highland Park Orcadian Vintage series sold for a combined £26,449, while a 28-year old 1973 bottle sold for over £1,000 and a 37-year-old bottle also sold for £1,270.

The combined total of Highland Park whiskies, which also included some speciality bottlings which sold in the high hundreds, came to over £71,000.

Half of the enormous collection comprised of prized Macallan bottlings.

The Macallan 1926 60-year-old single malt, of which only 40 bottles were produced, sold for a world-record £1.5 million.