World‘s Most Expensive Whiskey Sells for 2.7 Million Dollars at London Auction
The most expensive whiskey in the world was auctioned in London on Saturday, fetching a record-breaking price of 2.18 million pounds sterling ($2.7 million). Sotheby’s, the auction house responsible for the sale, reported that this 75cl bottle of Macallan has set a new record for wine and spirits.
Distilled in 1926, Macallan’s oldest vintage, and bottled 60 years later at 42.8º, this rare Scotch whiskey was matured in oak barrels, which gave it its dark color. The bottle sold this Saturday is the last in a series of 12, featuring a label designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami in 1993.
Due to its exclusivity and production, with only 40 bottles being produced from the barrel it comes from, Sotheby’s had initially estimated the bottle to sell for between 750,000 and 1.2 million pounds. One of the 12 bottles produced is known to have been destroyed during an earthquake in Japan.
The previous record for the most expensive bottle of whiskey was set in 2019 when a 70cl bottle from the same vintage sold for almost 1.5 million pounds. However, Sotheby’s head of whiskey sales, Jonny Foyle, clarified that despite the different label, it is the “same liquid”.
An expert from Sotheby’s had the rare opportunity to taste the precious whiskey and described it as “incredible” with an aftertaste of “nuts”, “spices”, and “wood”. One milliliter of the whiskey was extracted for future tests and comparisons, solidifying its status as a reference for future comparisons.