The rare bottle is estimated at £6,000-7,000 and was distilled and bottled by D. Johnston & Co., Laphroaig Distillery, Isle of Islay and is described on the label - unusually for a Laphroaig – as ‘non-peaty’.
Bonhams Whisky specialist Martin Green explains how he believes this came about: “I believe it would have been bottled from an autumn cask filling. The ‘non-peaty’, nature of the whisky is almost certainly the result of distilling after a particularly long dry summer when the water supply would have contained fewer of the natural peaty phenols which give Laphroig and other Islay malts their characteristic nose and taste.
As you can imagine, bottles like this appear extremely rarely and it could be many years until a similar bottle comes onto the auction market, if ever.”
The bottle comes from a distinguished collector who has owned it since it was discovered at Alexander McGavin's, No. 12 Bond, Robertson St., Glasgow in the early 1980s.
