 For centuries, Whiskey has held an enduring appeal for many. But for one man, Mr. Gooding, Whiskey became a personal devotion. Across decades of dedication, he carefully assembled a collection of over 3,900 bottles. In terms of my time in Whiskey professionally, this is, I would say, easily top five collections that I've ever seen and certainly the most extensive that I've ever seen come to market. This collection, for me, is unprecedented. Not only is it the biggest collection of Whiskey ever to come to public sale, it's the biggest collection of McCallan, it's the biggest collection of B'more, it's the biggest collection of Spring Bank and that list goes on and on and on. My name is Charles McLean and I drink for a living. I'm a writer specialising in Scotch Whiskey. My main interests are the history of Scotch Whiskey and what's called sensory evaluation, assessing quality. I'm Angus McRail, I'm a freelance Whiskey writer, a consultant and I do some work with Whiskey festivals, tastings and a lot with auctions. So valuing and dating and authenticating all bottles of Whiskey and tasting as many of them along the way as possible. My name's Johnny McMillan. I'm the Whiskey cast buyer for Berry Brothers and Rudd. I'm the co-founder of the Whiskey show Old and Rare. I found out about this collection through my friend and business partner, Johnny McMillan. So I got a call from a friend of mine who runs an distillery in Arkansas. He told me that a friend of his had some bottles of Whiskey to sell and didn't know what they were worth. I've got this collection I've heard about in America. You know I assumed it would be 10 or 20 bottles, little by little the list sort of dripped out. I started looking through the list and I just couldn't believe. Frankly I was awed. I was awed the list goes on and on and on and on and on. You know three and a half thousand bottles and I started to see some photographs and jaw-dropping. What is this ridiculous collection you know? McCall and Adamie, 1926 McCall and Fine and Rare. Ten bottles of 40 year old LaFroy. No one has that. It's ridiculous. I was Richard's pilot for 35 years. We went to Ireland and Scotland somewhere between 10 and 20 trips. Specifically for auctions or purchasing whiskies. We pulled up to Talisker and just knocked on the door and people answered and they gave us tours and it was before all of the tasting rooms were open and all the displays and stuff like that. He was into the whisky business long before it became as popular as it is today. My name is Becky Paskin. I was the editor of ScotchWhisky.com. I'm now a writer, consultant and whisky specialist and whisky is quite honestly my life. Mr Gideon's collection is nothing short of overwhelming really. There's no other word for it. It's just staggering how much he managed to collect in just a couple of decades. Flying all around the world to pick up bottles to either complete holes in his collection or just because he really loved the whisky itself. And we would go like McCallan and we would go in and he would start talking to the people there and he said well okay I'd like to have this one and I'd like to have these and that one and that one and that one. The next thing you know they're kind of looking at him going well do you want these or do you want those? And he said well I want them all. You can see through the bottles and through the collection a sense of what his passion was and the things he liked and you can also get a sense of the more unique quirks and his tastes as well. That's what to me is the hallmark of a great collection. The eclecticism of it from a consumer's point of view there is the opportunity to compare the same year, same whisky but different bottlers, different bottlings. So you can have vertical tastings or horizontal tastings galore. To purchase so many of one particular bottle as well shows that he wasn't in it just for collecting purposes. He was in it to try bottles to open them and enjoy it with friends for the love of whisky basically. He tasted a lot when we were on these trips but the great majority of his purpose was to have a collection at the end of one of everything that was ever made, the perfect collection. So there's over three and a half thousand bottles in his collection that will be going to the secondary market. I think they're really going to energize that market and provide a lot of excitement for buyers all around the world. Buying a bottle of whisky from this collection could be considered as carrying on Mr. Gooding's legacy in a way. It's also a way for a buyer to really have a sense of provenance about where that bottle has come from. So who's purchased it in the first place? That person has lovingly cared for it because they have such a passion for whisky. If you're in whisky like me for old bottles and history and bottled history then there's very few things like this have ever come to market or happened. You know a whole collection like this it's pretty unprecedented I would say. This collection is so comprehensive Mr. Gooding clearly was a dedicated passionate individual of the keen eye for collecting rare unique amazing whiskeys. Buying from distilleries that have long since closed and then you've got the collection that sort of evolves through more recent periods up to the legendary McAllen Fine and Rare series or the McAllen Adami in the 1926 bottlings which are legendary in themselves. The collection has a wide range of independent bottlings of signature in Cadenheads and Samoroli. These bottles are infamous in the quality of whisky that was put inside. The uniqueness of some of these independent bottlers, these US imported bottles. So whisky auctioneer really evolved around the desire to really be a part of whisky history and the love of being involved in what could be described as a golden era of whisky making and whisky drinking or collecting. It's hugely exciting to be a part of bringing all of these whiskeys together. All of the focus of one man's passion into an opportunity to auction those bottles and present them to the wider public.