January will mark the first live, single-owner American whiskey auction in history.
Later this month in New York, Sotheby’s will present The Great American Whiskey Collection at the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue, marking a historic moment in whiskey auction history.
Estimated at $1.17m to $1.68m, the sale brings together 360 bottles across 320 lots – each selected with the kind of discipline more often associated with museum collections than private bars. The auction forms part of Visions of America, a week-long celebration of American art, objects, and innovation, fittingly timed to coincide with the nation’s 250th anniversary.
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As Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s Global Head of Whisky & Spirits, observes, we have never before “witnessed a collection of such sought after bottles come to market from a single owner.” He adds that this “is not just the most valuable American whiskey collection ever to be offered at auction, it is the most meticulously curated, featuring the hardest to find bottles in the industry. In the world of American whiskey, it is a first.”
Set to take place on January 24, what distinguishes The Great American Whiskey Collection is not just scale, but intention. Assembled patiently over many years and stored in a custom-built home bar to preserve the rarest expressions of Bourbon and Rye at their most authentic and elusive. Private labels, exclusive single barrels, and historic bottlings, many of which are now virtually unobtainable, form the backbone of Sotheby’s historic sale.
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The chronology dates back to 1900, with a concentration of Old Rip Van Winkle bottlings at its core that account for the majority of the collection’s value and prestige. Produced in extraordinarily limited quantities and largely consumed shortly after release, these Van Winkle bottles survive today as remnants of another era, and rank among the most coveted and valuable American whiskeys in existence.
Alongside them sit landmark bottles from Old Fitzgerald, Red Hook Rye, Buffalo Trace, Michter’s, and Wild Turkey. Sotheby’s already holds the auction record for a post-Prohibition American whiskey at $125,000, and the top lot in this sale is widely expected to meet – or exceed – that figure.
An Old Rip Van Winkle 20 Year Old Single Barrel bottled in 1982 carries an estimate of $70,000 to $100,000. Meanwhile, a Van Winkle 18 Year Old “Binny’s” from 1985 follows close behind, while a Very Very Old Fitzgerald “Blackhawk” 18 Year Old from 1950, bottled privately for the Wirtz family of Chicago Blackhawks fame rounds out the sale’s most unique offerings.
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