Over the weekend, Sotheby’s sold a bottle of 23-Year-Old Family Reserve by Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon for $52,500. In a bidding war between two collectors, the price has set a new record for a single bottle of pappy.
According to Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s head of whisky and spirits, North America and EMEA, the sale of the bottle, which was also accompanied by its original black velvet bag, went “far beyond anyone’s expectations.”
“Synonymous with enthusiasts, whiskeys bottled under the Van Winkle brand have gone on to become amongst the most highly rated and sought-after, gathering an almost cult-like following,” Sotheby’s said in a statement. “Many of those were distilled at the old Stitzel-Weller Distillery, opened on Derby Day in 1935, which created some of the finest and most sought-after bourbons ever produced before its closure in the early 1990s, with production moving to the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort.”
