The news has not been great for the global spirits marketplace, as we’ve reported many times over the past year. Still, despite distilleries pausing production and corporate sales figures slipping, one bright spot seems to be in the auction market for rare and expensive whiskeys. One of the leading auction houses, Sotheby’s, released its 2025 Wine & Spirits Market Report late last week, and it details a bevy of information showing how it is out performing general market trends.
According to the report, auction sales in 2025 totaled $127.5 million, a year-over-year increase of 12 percent. A third of the buyers were new to Sotheby’s and more than half were under the age of 50, representing 63 different countries around the world. Some of the highlights from 2025 were the partnership with the Distillers One of One auction in Scotland, which included 39 ultra-rare and aged whiskies from 35 companies and distilleries. Sales from this auction totaled $3.9 million, which far surpassed the pre-sale estimate.
Sotheby’s also partnered with certain distilleries to auction off one-off bottlings for charity, including Bowmore’s Arc-54 Iridos, the Macallan Distil Your World Mexico Single Cask Edition, and The Dalmore 52 Year Old Luminary No.3 – The Rare. And in January, a record was set when a bottle of 20-year-old Old Rip Van Winkle sold for $162,500, making it the most valuable American whiskey ever sold at auction. “Our 2025 results underscore the strength and momentum of Sotheby’s Wine & Spirits business,” said Nick Pegna, global head of Sotheby’s Wine & Spirits, in a statement. “This success has been driven by a truly international buyer base, strong growth in new collectors, and our depth of expertise in presenting landmark single-owner collections.”
It’s not just Sotheby’s that is showing positive signs in the auction market. Unicorn Auctions, which was founded in 2020, also reported strong numbers for 2025 (full disclosure—I am also the editor of the Unicorn Review, the company’s separate editorial website). The company has had more than $175 million in lifetime sales spanning nine million bids on more than 500,000 bottles. That included the record-setting auction in partnership with the Chicago Blackhawks last fall, which raised almost $400,000 on sales of bottles like the Very Very Old Fitzgerald 18‑Year “Blackhawk” expression of Stitzel-Weller produced bourbon. Unicorn also reported a much broader customer base than what has typically been the case for auction houses. Christie’s has also made news recently with the sale of two casks of whisky from the Japanese ghost distillery Karuizawa, which were auctioned off for a record-breaking sum of £4,250,000 (about $5.7 million).
The expectation is that, for all of these auction houses, 2026 will continue to be a good year. It seems that while people are not consuming as much alcohol and spending less money on name brands from legacy producers, collectors are still out there in smaller but meaningful numbers, and they are eager to get their hands on rare bottles. To that end, Sotheby’s just announced its Whisky & Whiskey auction for 2026, which includes bottles from the Dayton Ong Collection like the Macallan Fine & Rare series, Glenfiddich 64 Year Old 1937 (the oldest vintage from the renowned distillery), a two-gallon bottle of Plankinton Reserve Cedar Brook Whiskey distilled in 1903, and 1.5-liter magnum bottle of Black Maple Hill 19-year-old bourbon.
