Getting into the spirit at a charity fundraising event

Most fundraising nights feature a raffle with a bottle of spirits nestled among the mid-range prizes somewhere between a pamper day at the local spa hotel and a boxset of Lynx toiletries, writes Mike Hill.

- With Mike Hill

But not the recent charity get together held for Youth Action Scotland where three bottles of whisky raised more than £1.1m between them for the organisation's coffers.

Top billing went to a Glenlivet Spira 60-year-old 1965 which confounded its pre-sale estimate of between £60,000 and £110,000 to go under the hammer for £650,000.

And anyone forking out that much for a 1.5 litre decanter of booze would surely need a drop of the hard stuff before ringing the bank manager to explain how they got drunkenly carried away with their credit card trying to impress the boss the night before.