The Springbank 1919 50 Year Old Proves No One Cares About Whisky

The Springbank 1919 is of the oldest vintage scotch whiskies available on the market. You can currently buy it for both £100,000 and £10,000—in the same month. So if you want one for your collection, here's how to save £90,000.
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The iconic “pear shaped” bottling is the original release of the Springbank 1919 50 year old, released in 1970. Photo: Mark Littler Ltd

The Springbank 1919 50 Year Old is one of the oldest vintage scotch whiskies available on the market. This incredible whisky was distilled more than 100 years ago and first bottled in 1970. But that’s not the wildest thing about it.

The Springbank 1919 is an enigma. It’s a single whisky that you can currently buy for both £100,000 and £10,000—in the same month! And that’s why we think it proves that some people just don’t care about whisky.

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The Two Bottles of The Springbank 1919

Let’s be clear, there are two versions of the Springbank 1919 50 year old. But as far as we can tell, and anyone we ask agrees, they are exactly the same whisky.

Both editions of this Springbank 50 year old were distilled in the same year and originally it was all bottled in 1970. The market for single malt was very limited in 1970 and so this incredible whisky was bottled in one of Springbank’s relatively standard bottles for the time. The “Pear Shaped” bottles now form their own collectors’ mini-series, but for an idea of how unremarkable it was deemed to be, the release even had the same label design as some of their 12 and 15 year olds from the era.

By the 1980s a small number of distilleries started to look at marketing single malt outside of Scotland. Springbank decided to rebottle the remaining stock of the 1919 50 year old from the classic pear shaped bottle into a tall round bottle with a stylized label. There were just 24 of these, which were hand numbered and came with a box. Thus began the strange duality of this incredible whisky.

One Whisky, Two Values

At the end of 2023 both versions of the Springbank 1919 whisky sold at two auctions in the same month. The rebottling sold for £125,000, right in the middle of its pre-sale estimate of £100,000 to £150,000. Including fees the original pear shaped Springbank 1919 sold for just over £10,000.

But what is it that causes the striking difference in value between two bottles that contain the same whisky? First of all let’s consider the remarkable feat that this whisky survived at all.

Surviving The Collapse Of Campbeltown

Springbank was the fourth (licenced) distillery in Campbeltown, founded in 1828. By 1885 there were 21 distilleries in the relatively small region. It was so heavily populated with distillers that Alfred Barnard, renowned whisky historian, dubbed the town “Whisky City.” 

In 1919 when this whisky we’re discussing was distilled, Springbank was at the center of the whisky world and part of a booming industry. By 1920 all that changed; prohibition was declared.

It wasn’t just the banning of alcohol in the US that caused the region’s downfall. Plenty of other distilleries boomed thanks to illegal smuggling. However Campbeltown had become a victim of its own success. Many distillers sacrificed quality to meet demand and that combined with (and probably contributed to) a shift in tastes away from the super heavily peat style Campbeltown was known for lead to the region’s almost complete collapse.

By contrast Springbank had started to shift their production to a less peated finish as early as 1900. This, along with a steadfast adherence to quality, meant it was one of only two distilleries to survive. That meant that although much of Campbeltown’s 1919 stock was chucked in the loch, Springbank’s infamous 1919 vintage survived.

The First Springbank 1919: A Whisky Before It’s Time

The Springbank 1919 50 Year Old had overcome its first hurdle and survived (probably forgotten) until 1970 when it was surprisingly bottled as a single malt. It’s surprising because as well as being technically underproof, it was a single malt in a market that was focused on blends.

Unusually for the time, the original pear shaped release was officially bottled by Springbank itself. They were able to do their own bottling as in 1969 they purchased wine merchant and independent bottler Cadenhead. There were comparable (younger) single malts being released at the time but official distillery releases were bottled by the likes of Gordon & Macphail or Campbell Hope & King etc.

For some markets the pear shaped 1919 whisky is labeled as 66.3 Proof, and for others as 100% Pure Malt—presumably some kind of suggestion of it being cask strength despite it not being at 70 proof. The bottling laws of the time meant under 40% ABV was acceptable, and so this extraordinary whisky was released to market. It was quite likely the oldest vintage whisky available at the time.

The reality was that it was released into a market that didn’t care about single malt and that was (once again) about to collapse.

In 1970 blended whisky was booming. Production had never been higher as the industry happily grew to accommodate the continuing post World War II demand. It’s not a stretch to imagine that the stray cask from 1919 was found while trying to find space to store all the whisky being produced at the time.

The 1980s marked the start of what is known as the “whisky loch” as the industry once again went into decline.

The Springbank distillery has survived two downturns of the whisky industry to become one of the most collectable scotch whiskies. Photo: John Allen

The Second Release: The Tall Bottle 37.8% 

Springbank ceased distilling whisky between 1979 and 1987. Unlike many other distilleries, they remained open and continued to sell their existing stock—such as the 1985 Longrow release.

While we don’t have an exact rebottling date for the rebottling of the Springbank 1919 50 Year Old we can use a few key events to work out when it might have been. In 1980 the UK changed from imperial to metric measurements. Following this change all bottles of scotch whisky had to be labeled in ml or cl and strength had to be listed as ABV rather than proof. Then in 1990 the standard bottle size changed to 70cl/700ml. The rebottling of the 1919 whisky is labeled 75cl and 37.7%, which means it was rebottled after 1980 but before 1990.

As we know that Springbank weren’t distilling new whisky between 1979 and 1987 we could also make the (relatively big) assumption that they would have looked to move unsold stock while distilling was paused. That narrows us down to 1980 to 1987. Then we can add some additional tangents that are more “educated guesses.” For example, in 1983 Macallan released their 50 year old Anniversary Malt, while Balvenie’s 50 year old was bottled in 1987. So the Springbank 1919 rebottling may have been in response to these.

Regardless of the exact release data, the rebottling was a very limited edition of just 24 hand numbered bottles, presented with a handwritten style label and a striking presentation box reminiscent of a pagoda. Otherwise it is the exact same whisky as its pear shaped younger brother, and yet the record paid for the rebottling stands at over £266,000, compared to just £23,000 for the original.

Why No One Cares About Whisky

We love whisky and plenty of other people love whisky too. But as a society we have been trained to impart values to things beyond what can be explained tangibly. If what was important was the whisky, then the value for these two bottles would be the same. The fact they sold for such vastly different sums within one month shows that value is being added based on something else.

You could argue that the sales through different auction houses are responsible for some of the difference in value. The reality is we usually see a more modest shift in value—correlating roughly with buyer’s premiums—when you compare results from the traditional/luxury auction houses to more recent online specialist auctions.

The biggest difference between the two Springbank 1919 50 Year Olds is packaging. To whisky enthusiasts both versions are amazing, because we understand both as products of their time. But to the casual collector, or more importantly to the high-net-worth collector after status bottles, it’s the rebottling that has the gravitas to shine in a collection. The rebottling has the presence, the case and possibly most importantly, the proud proclamation of the uber-exclusive 24 bottle limited edition status, to carry the quarter million price tag.

By contrast the original bottling is much more unassuming. It doesn’t scream high-value collectable to all but a very limited number of other whisky geeks. It also doesn’t have a limited edition number on it. But actually, when you do some estimates of potential release numbers, there’s a good chance there were less than 160 of them to begin with…

A Thought Experiment On Release Numbers

The original release for the Springbank 1919 doesn’t have a number of bottles listed. We have to make quite a few assumptions and guesses here, so this is just as a point of interest, but consider this…

If we assume this was just a single cask forgotten in a corner of the warehouse, then we have a rough starting point for fill volume. Realistically we would expect it was a butt to survive 50 years, which gives us roughly 500 liters back in 1919. We know average rates of evaporation, so for a butt we would expect around 60 to 180 liters remaining after 50 years. But as we know this has a low ABV, let’s assume the angel’s were thirsty. Removing the 24 that we know were rebottled for the second release leaves us with a maximum number of bottles for the original Springbank 1919 50 year old of 136, and a minimum of around 36. If it was a smaller cask then you could be looking at less than half of those figures.

Some of those will have been drunk in the 54 years since it was first released. In total we have found less than 50 sales of all of these bottles recorded since 2010. We would expect a few of these to be the same bottle being resold, and some will have been sold privately. Even so, those don’t instantly contradict the range of potential release numbers above.

So, while remembering that this is very much all a thought experiment, let’s just remember that the £2.2 million, most expensive whisky in the world, is one of 40.

With that to consider, I’ll just finally mention that this is not the only scotch whisky to experience this phenomena. Other examples of rebottling’s going for way more than the original include: Bowmore (Black Bowmore DB5 versus Black Bowmore Final) and numerous by Macallan, perhaps the most famous being the Fine and Rare version of the 1926 60 year old itself. And if you’ve found this interesting do also check out this video by Whiskey Wash Editor in Chief, Mark Littler.

Mark Littler

Mark Littler is the owner and editor in chief of the Whiskey Wash. He is also the owner of Mark Littler LTD, a prominent whisky and antiques brokerage service in the United Kingdom. Mark is a well known voice in the whisky industry and has a regular column at Forbes.com and has a popular YouTube channel devoted to everything whisky.

Mark completed the purchase of The Whiskey Wash in late 2023.

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