A 1982 bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle broke the record for the most expensive American whiskey sold at an auction on Saturday night. The 20-year, barrel-aged bottle sold for $162,500 at Sotheby’s in New York City as part of the Great American Whiskey Collection auction.
The offering as a whole garnered $2.5 million in total, setting the record for the most valuable single-owner American whiskey collection ever sold at auction, according to a press release from Sotheby’s. The company valued the collection between $1.17 million and $1.68 million prior to the live auction.
