What is a whisky auction and how does it work?

A whisky auction runs in rounds: bottles are offered with photos and a description, bidders place bids for days, and the highest bidder gets the bottle.

The auctioneer is usually not the owner of the bottles. They bring consignors and buyers together, describe the bottle and handle payment and shipping. Tasting a bottle is not part of it, and neither is opening one.

The description therefore covers the outside: fill level, condition of the label, condition of the closure and the box, if any. What is in the bottle is accepted on the word of the sender.

On top of the winning bid, almost every auction adds a buyer's premium, plus shipping costs and insurance.

The seller also pays commission on the proceeds. The amount a bottle costs is therefore higher than the amount at which it was knocked down, and the proceeds for the consignor are lower.

For shipments from a country outside the European Union, import duties, excise and VAT are added. Factor in these items before you place a bid.

Researchers at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre estimate that about 40 percent of the rare whisky on the market may be counterfeit.

In 2018 that laboratory of the University of Glasgow bought 55 bottles of rare Scotch. Of that lot, 21 were examined with carbon dating. All 21 turned out to be fake or not distilled in the year stated on the label. Had the lot been genuine, it would have been worth about 635,000 pounds, with bottles from 2,500 to an estimated 150,000 pounds each.

Every bottle that was supposed to date from around 1900 or earlier turned out to be fake.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the auction value of single malt Scotch was 53 percent lower than a year earlier, with 21 percent fewer bottles sold.

The composition of the market shifted with it. Bottles above one thousand pounds still accounted for 62.6 percent of the total value in 2023; in 2024 that was 40.8 percent. The share of the lower price brackets therefore grew, while the total value fell.

An auction result is therefore not a fixed quantity. What a bottle fetches depends on the month in which it happens to be offered.

Anyone selling alcohol at a distance in the Netherlands must, under Article 20a of the Alcohol Act, use an age verification system at purchase and check the age again on delivery.

Article 20 of that same act prohibits supplying alcoholic drink to anyone who is not yet 18, and also to an adult if it is clear that the drink is intended for someone under 18.

NIX18: wij vragen om een geldig identiteitsbewijs zodra er twijfel is over de leeftijd.

In a shop you see the bottle, the closure and the label before you pay, and a seller stands behind what is in the bottle.

At an auction you usually buy in the condition the bottle is in, without a guarantee on the contents and without the possibility of exchange. The responsibility for judging whether a bottle is right lies with the bidder.

Anyone looking for a rare bottle without that risk can ask in Bathmen whether it is in stock or can still be ordered. You can also call: 0570 541 278.