Ardbeg's price record at auction
Whisky Auctioneer, one of the leading auction platforms specializing in whisky, has recorded a record auction of a bottle of Ardbeg. Single bottle Ardbeg 1974 indeed, it sold for a dizzying £35,000, a record for whiskey from this distillery.
The bottle, which comes from barrel No. 2742, filled on June 14, 1974, is one of 36 in an extremely limited edition. In September 2005, an edition for whisky bars around the world went into bottles. The whisky was 31 years old at the time and came from a bourbon barrel.
In addition to the strictly limited, exclusive edition from which the record-breaking whiskey came, an important element affecting the price achieved was its vintage. Well, in 1974, Ardbeg stopped malting barley on its own and switched to malt from a malting plant in nearby Port Ellen. This has not been without effect on the quality of the distillate produced there. Legends circulate among whisky connoisseurs about the extraordinary aroma and taste of Ardbeg produced before this change. The record-breaking whisky was one of the last batches to be made using malt from Ardbeg.
As this small batch was intended primarily for hotel bars, the vast majority of the 36 bottles mentioned were opened and drunk shortly after its debut. That makes a record Ardbeg 1974 even more valuable in the eyes of collectors and was not without influence on the outcome of the auction.
The Ardbeg distillery, the easternmost whisky maker on the south coast of the island of Islay, is known for its extremely smoky, peaty whiskies. Before the first edition of Octomore from Bruichladdich was released, Ardbeg could confidently claim the title of the most smoky Scotch whisky. In turn, the extraordinary fine character of the distillate and the excellent casks used for its maturation meant that, in addition to its pronounced smokiness, Ardbeg had - and still has - a fine, complex, harmonious and extremely expansive character. It is these qualities of the local whisky that, after the reactivation of the distillery in 1998, it quite quickly gained cult status. Before it was bought by Glenmorangie plc and brought back to life at no small cost and expense, it was one of two distilleries offering smoky, peaty distillates, characteristic of Islay, owned by Allied Distillers. The second was Laphroaig and it was this, being larger and more efficient, that survived the difficult period of the 1980s. i 90. In the 1970s. At the time, world markets sold almost exclusively blended whisky, where the subtle bouquet and flavor of Ardbeg was not as important as the need to contain costs. Allied decided to close and sell Ardbeg, which Glenmorangie plc took advantage of and bought the then almost forgotten distillery in 1997.
Ardbeg recently underwent a major expansion, bringing its production potential to 2.4 million liters of pure alcohol per year. There have been occasional mentions of plans to bring back the traditional floor malting plant and return to preparing malt themselves for part of their production.
The aforementioned bottle Ardbeg 1974, sold for £35,000, not the first price record for whisky from this distillery. In July, the distillery sold a single barrel of whiskey dating back to 1975 to a collector in Asia, for which that buyer paid the incredible sum of £16 million.
W current offer of the House of Whisky Online admittedly, we don't have a single one of the remaining 35 bottles of that edition Ardbeg 1974, however, we have quite an impressive number of bottles from the same vintage and even earlier (data current at the time of preparing this material). We also have quite a few editions that are more everyday, less collectible, suitable for normal consumption. We invite you to visit and search among our resources.
[18.11.2022 / photo: Ardbeg]