The haul features more than 3,900 bottles of Scotch, including a bottle of 1926 Fine and Rare Macallan 60 Year Old, a bottle of which sold for almost £1.5m (including buyer’s premium) in October.
Other rare treats include The Macallan 1926 60-year-old with bespoke label created by Italian pop artist Valerio Adami, The Macallan 50-year-old Lalique Six Pillars collection, and a Springbank 1919 50-year-old, one of only 24 bottles produced. There are also whiskies in the sale from some of Scotland’s lost distilleries including Stromness and Dallas Dhu.
The collection will go on sale via the Whisky Auctioneer website over two auctions from February 7-17 and April 10-20 2020, who bill it as ‘the most extensive private collection we have seen in terms of the completeness of representation of 20th Century Scottish distilleries’.
It is being auctioned by the family of American businessman Richard Gooding, whose grandfather established the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Denver in 1936 which was sold to PepsiCo in 1988.
Gooding, who died at the age of 67 in 2014, spent over 20 years putting the collection together, often taking his private jet to auctions in Scotland to seek out rare bottles.
‘It was clear to us as a family that collecting Scotch was one of Richard’s greatest passions – an endeavour that spanned over two decades,’ said his widow Nancy.
‘He loved every aspect of it, from researching the many single malt distilleries to visiting them and tasting their whiskies. He was always so pleased to acquire the bottles that he was searching for over the years – his mission was to collect a bottle that represented every single distillery but his favourite was always Bowmore, with his preferred whisky being Black Bowmore.’
An unprecedented collection
Iain McClune, founder of the Whisky Auctioneer website, believes that an auction of this scale is unprecedented. ‘There’s never been a private sale of a collection like this ever before at auction. It’s the largest collection by value, by volume as well, and it’s very exciting to be part of that,’ he said.
‘What’s exciting about this collection is Mr Gooding really developed and built an extensive range of whiskies across the whole Scotch Whisky industry and from other countries as well. Over several decades, Mr Gooding spent his time really putting together what was considered the perfect collection of whisky in his eyes and it really does show,’ he added.
Learn more about the collection and view some of the auction highlights at the Whisky Auctioneer website.
