Best practice advice on searching whisky auctions.

We compiled a list of guidelines which can help you to improve your search experience:

• Avoid “too broad” search terms:
  You will see a warning when your search term is too vague. In these cases, you will only be presented with a limited list of auction lots. Try to narrow your search before using the search filters, as they will only operate on that limited list otherwise.

• Filter the search results:
  Use the provided filters to narrow your search. Exclude auction houses or lot locations which are not relevant to you. Note that the “Whisky” filters can only be used on identified lots but allow filtering on whisky specifics beyond the information provided by the auction house.

• Use the alcohol strength and bottle size:
  If you are looking for a specific whisky, include the bottle size in millilitres (e.g. “700ml”) and the alcohol strength (e.g. “51.7%”) along with the brand name. Especially for non-standard strengths, this can drastically improve your search results.

• Force word order:
  Putting text inside quotes requires the words to appear in that very order. The unquoted search term ‘Old Malt Cask’ leads to many results, as all three words are widespread in whisky descriptions. By putting this search term into quotes, you require the entire phrase to present.

• Exclude terms:
  You can use the dash “-” to exclude auction lots that match a particular word or quoted phrase. This can be useful to, e.g. search for a specific vintage year like “1970” but exclude all lots with “1970s” in their description.

• Combine search queries:
  The word “or” acts like the logical “OR” operator and allows you to combine multiple search queries. For example, “Folio 4 or Folio 5” will result in all lots that either include the Macallan Folio 4 or Macallan Folio 5 releases.