Bonhams’ online whisky sales attracts budding young bidders

Auctioneer Bonhams has celebrated encouraging results from its recent online whisky sale where almost 40% of the bidders were new clients and over 30% were young collectors under 40 years old.

Hosted from 15 to 22 February, the online whisky sale focused on 180 lots of Japanese and Scotch whiskies from highly sought-after distilleries at price points as low as HK$3,000, the aim being to attract young whisky enthusiasts.

Daniel Lam, Bonhams’ director of Wine & Spirits, Asia, commented: “We have seen more new collectors coming in than ever: one in every five bidders in our worldwide whisky sales over the last two years was a new bidder.”

The results proved the, “robust interest from this rising community from across Asia and beyond” as nearly 40% of the bidders are new clients and over 30% are young collectors under 40 years old.

Some notable highlights included a bottle of Karuizawa 1968 50 year-old -#6223 which sold for HK$471,200 and a Karuizawa Yashiro 1971 37 year-old which sold for HK$347,200, which was over four times the pre-sale estimate.

Meanwhile, the enthusiasm for Scotch was much in evidence: a Macallan Lalique Genesis 72 year-old decanter was sold for HK$930,000, while a Black Bowmore 1964 was sold for HK$186,000.