Last week, word got out that a new world record had been set for the most expensive whisky sale ever made. Two exceptionally rare bottles of Macallan 1926 single malt whisky were recently sold at Le Clos, a duty free spirits retailer in Dubai’s international airport. Let me stress that again, the world’s most expensive whisky purchase EVER was made at an airport!
A private collector purchased the two bottles at $600,000 USD a piece, turning the sale into a small sum of $1.2 Million. Not a bad layover purchase if you ask me.
What makes the Macallan 1926 so damn special? Well, the 1926 single malt was distilled in Craigellachie, Moray, and aged for 60 years in sherry-seasoned oak casks before being bottled in 1986. Macallan commissioned two artists to design unique labels for these rare bottles, and not just any artists; English pop artist Sir Peter Blake, known famously for co-creating the album art for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Italian painter Valerio Adami.
There were only a total of 40 bottles produced, of which Blake and Adami received a dozen each. The rest were optioned to preferred clients of Macallan at the time of release. So that means there are little, if any bottles of this rare spirit out in the wild now.
Don’t expect to see these bottles go up for sale anytime soon either. I expect that whomever dished out the money for these is an avid collector, and one that is likely to hold onto these bottles as an investment for quite some time.
Man I wish I had the kind of money where a $1.2 Million dollar whisky purchase can be made on a whim at an airport…
Ale/Sessions 