The Whisky Museum
One of the largest and most diverse private whisky collections ever assembled in the UK is available for sale now. More than 5,000 bottles, gathered over 44 years alongside some 1,800 pieces of memorabilia, a collection built quietly, one bottle at a time, since 1982.
The collection spans 2,000 single malts, 1,800 miniatures and 500 blends, with bottles reaching back to the 1800s. It ranges from Macallan 1937 to a bottle believed to date from 1894, taking in vintage blends, English and Japanese whisky, and cabinets of Gordon & MacPhail along the way. It has never been broken up or thinned out, and is offered complete.
Offered for sale exclusively through Mark Littler Ltd at £750,000. Housed in a purpose-built 100ft gallery, the collection is available to view by appointment. Full inventory and provenance are available on request.
About the Collection
What began with a single bottle in 1982 became, over the next four decades, one of the most complete records of whisky in private hands. The collection was never assembled to a plan. It grew the way the best collections do, one bottle at a time, guided by curiosity rather than a checklist, until it needed a building of its own.
That building is a former pigsty, converted and then extended to a full 100ft, fitted with display cabinets and a security system, and given over entirely to whisky. Inside are more than 5,000 bottles: 2,000 single malts, 1,800 miniatures, 500 blends, and shelf upon shelf of the things that surround whisky rather than sit inside it. Water jugs, optics, neck labels, decanters, figures and paintings, some 1,800 pieces in all.
It is the breadth that sets it apart. Single malt Scotch runs through the collection, but so do vintage blends, English releases, Japanese whisky, and bottles that most collectors overlook entirely. There are cabinets of Macallan and whole shelves of Gordon & MacPhail. There is a Macallan 1937 and a bottle believed to date from 1894. There are two of every box from a favourite English distillery, and a room kept aside simply to house the boxes. Nothing was thinned out to make the collection look tidier than it was, and that is exactly what makes it worth having.
In the Owner’s Words
“I never set out to build a museum. A friend gave me a bottle in 1982, a whisky called Jolly Runner, and that was that. I liked whisky well enough, but I didn’t plan any of this. It just happened, one bottle here and another there, and forty-four years went by.
My first Macallan was a ten year old, and the ten year old is still my favourite, though it isn’t quite the same now as it was then. I’ve around 260 bottles of Macallan in the end. I’ve paid over six thousand pounds for a single bottle and I’ve paid a few pounds for others, and I couldn’t always tell you which gave me more pleasure. Every bottle tells a story, and it’s one I know, because I know where each one sits and how it came to be there.
It outgrew the house first. When I reached a thousand bottles my wife made it clear they weren’t staying indoors, so I took on the old pigsties, adjusted a couple of them, and kept extending until the whole thing was under one roof. I’ve flown to Scotland and come home with thirty-odd bottles in one go. That is rather how it ended up the size it is.
I’m eighty-one now. I’ve had forty-odd years of enjoyment out of it, and the truth is it has become too large and too involved to simply hand down. I would rather it went, whole, to someone who will enjoy it the way I have. If it weren’t for my age I wouldn’t part with it at all. But you have to see it to understand quite how much is here.”
Ownership and Terms
The sale includes the entire contents of the museum. The buyer receives everything: every bottle, the display cabinets, and all of the memorabilia, from the water jugs and optics down to the last neck label.
Viewings are available on request, and a full inventory of the single malts can be provided to serious enquirers.
Uplift and shipping are the buyer’s responsibility and cost, given the size and nature of the collection. Mark Littler Ltd will be on hand throughout to assist with arranging it.
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