Looks like you lost out on this bidding war.
Posted on 04/17/2002 9:50:35 PM PDT by LarryLied
A RARE bottle of malt whisky became the most expensive in the world yesterday after fetching nearly £20,000 at auction.
The 60-year-old bottle of The Macallan went under the hammer for £19,800 to an anonymous telephone bidder, beating the last record of £15,000 for a bottle from the same batch last September.
It was sold at McTear’s auction house in Glasgow which holds the word’s most exclusive whisky sales.
Tara Serafini, a spokeswoman for the Speyside distillery which made the bottle , would not comment on the identity of the purchaser, but she added that they had to fight off stiff competition from other telephone and internet bids.
Ms Serafini said: "This is the highest price ever paid for a bottle of whisky, it has beaten all records.
"It is obviously a very high price to pay, but there are very few 60-year-old malts of this quality around."
The whisky was first poured into a sherry cask, which give it its rich, dark colour, in 1926 and left to mature for six decades.
It was then bottled in 1986 and is one of only 40 bottles in existence.
Of these, only 25 have ever been released for sale on the open market and are held in private collections in the UK, America and the Far East.
Before yesterday another bottle from the same batch sold at McTear’s auction house last September for £15,000.
Ms Serafini said she believes the leap in price is a result in the willingness of investors to put their money into rare and valuable items rather than unsure global markets following 11 September.
Ms Serafini added: "This is not exactly the kind of whisky you would drink at a party. It is something that would complement a collection.
"I have never tasted any of this malt, but our master distiller has and he says it is fantastic.
"We are not surprised that it went for this much as we knew there was a lot of interest, but it is good that it broke the record.
"It is also a healthy sign that this has gone for so much more than the last bottle. It shows that while normal routes for investment are giving little return people are looking for new areas to place their money.
The malt, which was bottled at cask strength of 42.6 per cent, was sold unlabelled yesterday, but a bespoke label will be designed to the purchaser’s own specifications.
The first 12 bottles, released in 1986, featured a label designed by Peter Blake while the second 12, released in 1993, had one designed by Valerio Adami, an Italian artist.
In the last five whisky auctions held by McTear’s in the last two years, malts from The Macallan distillery accounted for 15 per cent of all bottles sold.
A total of 2,000 bottles of different varieties of whisky went under the hammer at the auction yesterday at a total value of £180,000.
There is a legend in golf that says there are 18 holes on a golf couse because a bottle of whiskey only holds 18 shots,and when the Scots ran out,drinking a shot per hole, the round was over.
At $28,916.99 a bottle, that's one expensive round of golf.
Of course, by the end of the night I wasn't capable of pronouncing "beer".
60 years old. Wow. Scotch loses 2% of its volume per year in the cask. Think about how much scotch evaporated away in the last 20 years of aging. And then think about how many time in your life you'll drink 40 year scotch. You better start with something *really* special before letting it age that long.
Personal favorite: 20 year old Dallas Dhu. If you ever see it, try it. Speyside. Yummy.
Looks like you lost out on this bidding war.
Will it ever go bad in the bottle? I am not a big Scotch drinker so right now it is just sitting around unopened.
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And you live where? |
Don't worry about your Mac 25. It will never go bad. But it won't get better either, since it's not in a cask. Just store at room temperature and keep well corked so you don't lose a lot to evaporation.
You've got something real special there, RK. I never see it in the stores, even the more upscale ones.
I'll give you $10 for it.
The whisky was first poured into a sherry cask, which give it its rich, dark colour, in 1926 and left to mature for six decades.
Grape and grain should never meet! IMHSO (in my humble Scottish opinion) the finest whisky to be found is Laphroaig. An Islay malt: like liquid smoke. Got a 15 year old staring at me just now...
Others to try are Ardbeg and Lagavulin. The distilleries all take their water from almost the same place: they're right next to each other on the island. Not sure which of these you'll find in the States (I'm sure they're to be found somewhere).
Slainte mhath! (good health)
Andrew
If it was Laphroaig, you got lucky. It's one of the best Scotch whiskys you'll ever try. What a fortuitous way to pick a whisky.
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