Nairobi News

ChillaxHashtag

World’s most expensive whiskies go on sale, including a Sh130million bottle


Some of the world’s rarest and most expensive whiskies went on sale on Friday in an online auction of a private collection amassed by a late US soft drink bottling tycoon.

The late Mr Richard Gooding, it is said, was, during his lifetime, an American private collector from Colorado.

He spent decades in pursuit of creating what has come to be known as “The Perfect Collection” of whisky, “leaving no stone unturned by traveling regularly to Scotland with his pilot in search of special bottles at auctions and distilleries.”

Until recently, the collection has been housed in Mr Gooding’s ‘pub’ – a dedicated room located in his Colorado family home that was specially designed to showcase each one of his whiskies in all their glory.

The Whisky Auctioneer company said its “Perfect Collection”, includes 100-year-old bottles believed to be worth more than a Sh130 million (£1 million).

The 3,900 bottles mostly comprise single malt Scotch whiskies that will be sold in two lots.

The first 1,949 auctioned over the next 10 days include a rare Macallan 1926 Valerio Adami (60-year-old) and a Springbank 1919 (50-year-old).

Some of the bottles from the 'Perfect Collection' that are on sale in an auction of the world’s rarest and most expensive whiskies. PHOTO | COURTESY
Some of the bottles from the ‘Perfect Collection’ that are on sale in an auction of the world’s rarest and most expensive whiskies. PHOTO | COURTESY

‘PERFECT COLLECTION’

The second batch will be available between April 10-20 with thousands already signed up for the auction on the company’s website worldwide.

“It is the diversity within the Perfect Collection that is perhaps the most exciting aspect,” Whisky Auctioneer founder Iain McClune said in a statement.

The library features samples from some of Scotland’s lost distilleries — and not all are out of reach for the average whisky lover.

Gooding, who died in 2014, was the grandson of James A. Gooding who started the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Denver in 1936.

“His mission was to collect a bottle that represented every single distillery,” Gooding’s widow Nancy said on the auctioneer’s website.