Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) — U.S. wine auctions kept up 2007’s sizzling pace through the end of the season, with liquor added to the mix in New York for the first time since Prohibition.

Sales for the year at seven major auction houses, including liquor, totaled $208 million, up 25 percent from last year and almost double the $106 million of 2005.

It was “an unprecedented year for wine auctions,” says Zachys auction director Michael Jessen. The Scarsdale, New York- based retailer’s auction sales topped $52 million, up $18 million from 2006 for about the same amount of wine.

So much for the worrywarts who predicted early in the fall that Wall Street’s subprime mortgage woes would depress the wine auction market.

The new twist for the season was the booze that came under the hammer. The latest high-priced shocker was a bottle of 1926 Macallan, a single-malt Scotch whisky that brought in $54,000, including commissions, at Christie’s on Dec. 8, almost double the high estimate of $30,000. Illustrating the effect of the weak dollar, about half of the bids came from outside the U.S.

Bottled in 1986 after 60 years in a wooden cask, the ultra- rare 1926 is one of only 40 such bottles produced by the famous distillery. According to Macallan, there’s just one left in the archives.

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