Whiskey Galore

Eleven in the morning is a little early for whiskey, but Christie's salesroom at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan was packed with drinkers on Saturday.

The crowd, made up of men in tweed sports coats, socialites, and bar owners, wasn't interested in an eye opener but in New York's first legal spirits auction since Prohibition.

As the audience munched on fried potato pancakes topped with caviar and other snacks, they bid on 100 different lots of pricey spirits. While the hour might have been a little early for a dram, it didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the bidders.

The sale totaled $304, 800, which surpassed the pre-sale estimate of $250,000. The star of the auction was lot 177, a single bottle of 1926 Macallan whiskey. The bidding opened at $15,000 and quickly escalated, passing $30,000, which was the top end of the pre-auction estimate. When the gavel fell the bottle had sold for $54,000 (including the buyer's premium) to a New York collector. It set a new record for Christie's for the most paid for a single bottle of Scotch. (The auction house has previously held spirits auctions in Europe.)

The Macallan bottle, however, failed to break the overall world record: Almost $60,000 for a rare bottle of Bowmore in Scotland this past fall. Another lot that was eagerly anticipated was one that contained a collection of 729 bottles of single malt, blends, and vatted whiskies. It sold for an incredible $102,000 (including the buyer's premium) to an anonymous collector.

For those who wanted to celebrate their purchase immediately, Christie's served champagne (the reasonably priced Chartogne-Taillet Cuvee St. Anne Brut, which sells for about $30) but most bidders seemed to stick with coffee, juice or sparkling water.

The sale came after the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States successfully lobbied Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York to legalize the auction of spirits. (It has been legal for auction houses in New York to offer wine auctions since the early 1990s.)

And the sale comes at a very good time, with pricey spirits growing in popularity.

"Super premium is booming," Frank Coleman, senior vice president of the spirits council, said at a news conference last week. His advice for collectors? "Buy two bottles. Drink one and sell one."

Noah Rothbaum