A sale of the first barrels of whisky produced by BrewDog has broken a record at an Aberdeenshire whisky auctioneer.
Specialist auction house Whisky Hammer said all 50 casks were sold raising £377,000 in what it called its “best performing” whisky cask auction to date for a distillery start-up.
The auction at Udny-based Whisky Hammer consisted of 200-litre casks, which will be filled at BrewDog’s distillery in nearby Ellon early next year.
BrewDog, better known for its range of craft beers, launched its distilling arm in 2016.
Its subsidiary BrewDog Distilling Co, initially known as Lone Wolf, started producing gin and vodka while its whisky matured.
Starting price of a cask was £5,000, with an average sale price of £7,546 achieved for the range of ex-Oloroso sherry, ex-bourbon and single grain ex-bourbon barrels.
The top price achieved for a cask was £12,500.
The auction price includes storage at BrewDog’s warehouse for up to five years.
By law, Scotch whisky must be matured in oak casks in Scotland for at least three years.
Daniel Milne, managing director and co-founder of Whisky Hammer, said the sale generated a “fantastic level of interest” from global buyers.
He said: “We are incredibly proud of the success of the BrewDog Distilling Co cask auction which has highlighted strong demand for cask ownership and support for new distilleries in the whisky industry.
“We look forward to following the distillery’s journey and sampling the whisky once matured.”
Steven Kersley, managing director of BrewDog Distilling Co, said: “In the last two weeks since announcing our first cask auction, we’ve been blown away by the support, enthusiasm and the amount of interest in our whisky programme.
“We’re now looking ahead to 2023, where our focus, as always, will be instilling great flavour into our whiskies and taking as many people on our whisky journey as possible – we might even auction a few more casks.”
The sale closed on December 11 after being live online for four days.
