A bottle of Scotch whisky distilled 100 years ago has became the second most valuable bottle of whisky ever sold in sterling.
The Macallan 1926 became achieved a price of £2.1 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Scotland. A whisky from the same cask fetched slightly more in 2023.
The spirit was bottled in 1986 after maturing for 60 years, with just 40 bottles drawn from a single sherry seasoned oak cask. It is one of 14 bottles that were decorated with the Fine & Rare label that were first released in 2002.
Sotheby’s has previously described The Macallan 1926 as the “holy grail” of whisky.
Since cask number 263 was laid down in 1926 it has slowly darkened and drew flavours from the cask’s Spanish wood. By the 1980s the whisky had matured into something special, and the cask contained enough for just 40 bottles.
Rather than putting the bottles onto normal retail shelves, the distillery commissioned artists to design special labels for 25 of them. The English pop artist Sir Peter Blake – famous for co-creating the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover – designed 12.
The auction was the first ever auction staged at the Macallan Estate, Speyside and, according to Sotheby’s, the first in any Scottish distillery.
It was held to mark 100 years since the distillation of the Macallan 1926, with more than 40 other lots also available.
The auction was an invitation-only event attended by 50 of the world’s leading whisky collectors, with additional collectors bidding online.
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