Record breaking Dalmore sale @ Sotheby’s, May 28th 2020

The ongoing dogfight between The Dalmore and The Macallan continued through 2020. For many years, it was the mighty stag of Dalmore that broke all the records for whisky sales at auction. And then came Macallan. For decades these two titans fought it out in the world’s most prestigious auction rooms until the old stag of Dalmore finally succumbed to the prowess of Macallan. However, it seems there may be more fight in him yet….

On the 28th May, 2020 at Sotheby’s London, Dalmore demonstrated that it can can still hit the dizzying heights with the hammer price as a new auction record was set for the distillery. Two bottles of Dalmore 62 sold to two separate Asian individuals for a combined price of over half a million dollars. The bottles were Dalmore 62 year old The Mackenzie and Dalmore 62 year old The Cromarty, bottles No.2 and No.5, respectively, from an original series of twelve bottles that were named after various elements of Dalmore’s history.

The most astonishing fact with this sale wasn’t that it was The Dalmore and not The Macallan, nor that two out of five bidders were younger than 40 years old. Rather it was the fact that this was an auction conducted entirely online, with collectors from over 25 countries taking part, and, crucially, that it was at the height of the Covid19 lockdown. As some investors in traditional asset classes battened down the hatches trying to ride out the storm, the savvier ones were making a mass exodus out of the volatile stock markets, hurrying to close down their bank based assets, and making the mass migration to tangible assets. Number one performer on that list according to Knight Frank- rare and old whisky.