Edradour 1971 Moon Import / The Animals

Moon Import was founded by Pepi Mongiardino in 1980 and he bottled his first whisky in 1982. Always beautifully labelled, Pepi is acclaimed for designing the packaging for Moon Import bottles himself, often using images found in old books. These iconic designs, coupled with the quality of the liquid saw Moon Import steadily grow in popularity. The company is still going strong, and their early releases are some of the brightest gems in any whisky collection.

This 1971 Edradour was matured in casks 3571-2 and bottled in 1990. This is part of The Animals series, which was bottled between 1989 and 1990, although three new additions were added in 2001, sold exclusively in the Japanese market. One of 600 bottles.

For a long time Edradour was Scotland's smallest distillery. Owned by William Whitely for much of the 20th century, it contributed malt for their King's Ransom blend, which had developed a strong sales network in the US with dubious Mafia boss, Frank Costello, as its representative. The distillery was eventually sold to Campbell Distillers in 1982, who opened it up to visitors and bottled its first official single malt in 1986. Despite its small size, the distillery has always found itself interested parties, with independent bottlers-turned-distillers, Signatory Vintage, purchasing it in 2002 when it was deemed surplus to requirements by Campbell Distillers parent firm, Pernod-Ricard.

This bottle is being sold from the Pat's Whisk(e)y private collection which, numbering in excess of 9,000 bottles and over 2,000 miniatures, is the single largest collection of whisky ever to be brought to auction. Pat's Whisk(e)y is the result of over fifteen years of passion and dedication to the goal of creating one of the most complete libraries of whisky and whiskey ever amassed by an individual collector. It contains bottles from over 150 different Scottish distilleries, as well as bourbon, rare Scotch releases from sought-after independent bottlers in Europe, and whisky from other distilleries across the globe. Whisky Auctioneer is delighted to have partnered with Pat's Whisk(e)y to offer this collection across a number of exclusive and spotlight auctions. For more information, please click here.