$2.7 million bottle of Scotch whisky breaks auction record

According to Sotheby’s, the latest spirit to fetch bids over millions of dollars in recent years, the world’s “most sought-after” bottle of Scotch whisky sold for a record $2.7 million on Saturday, shattering a record previously held by another bottle from the same barrel.

The London auction house Sotheby’s said that bottles from the same cask between 2018 and 2019 shattered the three previous auction records for any bottle of wine or spirit, including the Macallan Adami 1926, which sold for about 2.2 million pounds.

In 2019, a Macallan 1926 sold for 1.5 million pounds ($1.8 million), shattering the previous record.

The bottle, dubbed the “world’s most expensive whisky” by Sotheby’s, was expected to fetch between $700,000 and $1.2 million at auction—the highest price the auction house has ever put on a bottle of wine or spirit.

According to Sotheby’s, just 40 bottles of the Macallan 1926 were bottled in 1986 after being matured for 60 years in sherry casks. Of those, 12—including the bottle that was auctioned on Saturday—had labels created by Italian painter Valerio Adami.

According to Sotheby’s, the bottle that was sold on Saturday was the first to undergo restoration work done by Macallan’s distillery. This involved replacing the cork and capsule of the bottle and applying fresh glue to the corners of the labels.

The Associated Press was informed by Kirsteen Campbell, a Macallan whisky maker, that the bottle had notes of “rich dark fruits, black cherry compote alongside sticky dates, followed by intense sweet antique oak.”

Associated Press