which sold Saturday for $2.7 million. Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s
Forget chardonnay with turkey this Thanksgiving. One adventurous and deep-pocketed enthusiast could well be serving the most valuable bottle of whisky in the world at their holiday feast. Although that might be a bit of a stretch, what with the bottle costing $2.7 million.
Known as “the most sought-after Scotch whisky” in the world, The Macallan 1926, one of only 40 bottles drawn after aging in sherry casks for 60 years, sold at auction Saturday at Sotheby’s in London, becoming the most expensive bottle of spirit or wine sold at auction.
The previous record was set in 2019 when Sotheby’s sold a bottle of The Macallan 1926 for $1.9 million. The Macallan distillery is a single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Craigellachie, Moray, Scotland.
The 700 ml bottle contains about 45 pours of 15 ml each, breaking down to about $60,000 a pour for its lucky new owner and friends.
Ahead of the sale, Sotheby’s head of whisky, Jonny Fowle, told AFP news agency that he had tried a small sample. “I tasted a tiny drop—a tiny drop—of this. It’s very rich, it’s got a lot of dried fruit as you would expect, a lot of spice, a lot of wood,” he said, calling it an “incredible” whisky that should not be taken lightly.
At $2.7 million a bottle, that’s not very likely.