The 5cl miniature bottles of Springbank 1919 50 Yr Previous and Malt Mill 10 Yr Previous have been offered this month for £7,360 ($8,871/ €8,659) and £6,670 ($8,039/ €7,848) respectively by on-line public sale home Whisky.Public sale – file sums for each distilleries.
One other miniature of Springbank 1919 offered at public sale in August 2021 for £6,440, whereas a miniature of Malt Mill fetched £3,400 when it was offered by Scotch Whisky Auctions in February 2018.
The file sum for any whisky miniature at public sale is believed to be the £12,500 paid for a 5cl bottle of Macallan 62 Yr Previous Lalique Six Pillars Assortment No. 5 in April 2021 through Whisky Auctioneer.
Springbank 1919 – produced on the cult Campbeltown distillery that malts, distils, matures and bottles all its whisky on-site – is described by Whisky.Public sale as ‘a agency collector’s favorite’, however Malt Mill is an altogether extra mysterious – and even rarer – whisky.
Malt Mill was a tiny distillery that operated on the identical web site as Lagavulin on the isle of Islay from 1908 to 1962. It owed its creation to a long-running authorized dispute between the Johnston household (house owners of close by Laphroaig) and the Mackies, the house owners of Lagavulin who misplaced the fitting to distribute Laphroaig, and arrange Malt Mill as an alternative.
The distillery sprang to wider fame in Ken Loach’s 2012 movie The Angels’ Share, which centres on the public sale of a ‘priceless’ cask of Malt Mill.
With two small and old school pot stills and conventional worm condensers, Malt Mill is alleged to have produced a spirit that was ‘very full-bodied with a powerful malty bouquet totally different from anything on Islay’, as reported by whisky historian Dr Nicholas Morgan in Whisky.Public sale Journal.
Malt Mill’s tiny manufacturing was completely utilized in blends similar to Mackie’s Historical Scotch, however within the early Nineties some miniature bottle collectors acquired a pattern bottle of mature Malt Mill – distilled in 1959 and bottled in 1969 – from a former distillery worker.
They organized for 4 miniature bottles to be created, together with the one offered in 2018 by Scotch Whisky Auctions.
The unnamed purchaser of the newest Malt Mill miniature instructed Whisky.Public sale that they wouldn’t be opening it, including: ‘Slightly I’ll cling onto it for a couple of years and really feel proud to personal it.’
Isabel Graham-Yooll, Whisky.Public sale director, mentioned: ‘The costs achieved on these two very uncommon miniatures are thrilling, however maybe not sudden given the rarity of those whiskies.
‘A lot of the liquid we see coming to public sale in miniatures is just unavailable in full bottles, having been consumed a few years earlier than. Miniatures usually outlive their full-size counterparts in “memento” type. And, typically, the liquid is so scarce that solely miniatures ever existed.’
