Since 1983 the world record price for a bottle of whisky has been broken just 14 times by only 6 bottles. The current record for the most expensive bottle of whisky is easy to find, but a comprehensive history of the most expensive bottles stretching back to when the market first emerged hasn’t existed before now. Compiled by Mark Littler Ltd and first released in Cask & Still Magazine magazine, this is the first definitive history of the world’s most expensive bottles of whisky.
Over the last few decades, single malt Scotch whisky has exploded in value. Whisky bottles are now widely considered luxury assets alongside alternative investments such as gold, wine, jewellery, and classic cars. Single malt whisky bottles first appeared on the Knight Frank Luxury Index in 2019 following the first million pound bottle sale in 2018. However, single malt whisky has been challenging perceptions as far back as 1983 when the first world record-breaking sale was recorded.
In 1983 the most expensive bottle of whisky in the world was a 50 year old Macallan whisky distilled in 1928 purchased for £1,100. As of 2023 the most expensive bottle of whisky in the world is once again a Macallan, this time a 60 year old distilled in 1926 that went for over £1.5million. But what happened in between?
Over the course of this article, we track the astronomical rise of single malt scotch over the last 40 years as it goes from thousands to millions of pounds. As we start on our journey we will introduce leaps of five or six thousand pounds over years or more, by the end of this history one single malt whisky will take the record from just over a hundred thousand to well over a million in the course of less than 12 months. Welcome to the history of the world’s most expensive whisky.
Prefer your history in video format? The head to YouTube where Mark has filmed a video covering the complete history of the most expensive whiskies.
The 14 Most Expensive Bottles of Whisky Throughout History
No. 14: Macallan 1928 50 Year Old
Record held: 1983 – 1991
Price: £1,100
We begin in 1983, when Macallan released just 500 bottles of the Macallan 1928 50 year old Anniversary malt, a sister bottling to the 25 year old Anniversary Malt series that began in 1983. It is rumoured that the 50 year old was released at £50, the same way in which the 25 year old Anniversary Malts were released at £25. This was one of many clever marketing ploys by Macallan as they began their journey to become internationally renowned producers of single malt.
In 1983 however, £50 was expensive for a bottle of single malt whisky. At that point, blended whisky was the drink of choice for most. Even so, this impressive single malt was met with enthusiasm. The Macallan 1928 50 year old was sold at Christie’s for £1,100 in the same year as its release. Whilst we were not able to verify the exact dates of the auction and the precise release date of the 50 Anniversary Malt, what we do know is that this bottle sold at auction for 22 times its original release price within 12 months of launch.
This is an astonishing feat even today, let alone in 1983. To put it in perspective the proportional jump in value from release to auction exceeds that of the 2018 jump when it went from £100,000 to one million.
Of course, in hindsight that is no surprise for a brand like Macallan, but at the time Macallan was still laying the foundations for what it would become. The world record list begins as would go on, with The Macallan breaking the record 9 times out of the 14 recorded prices.
No. 13: Macallan 1926 60 Year Old Peter Blake
Record held: 1991 – 1996
Price: £6,375
Sir Peter Blake is a well-beloved British Pop Artist whose career spans over six decades. He is best known for creating the artwork for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP (1967). The legendary artist now has a long-standing relationship with Macallan, which led to the creation of the Eight Decades Of Sir Peter Blake – a collaboration with Sir Peter in celebration of his 80th birthday in 2012. However, in 1986 would mark the first collaboration between the artist and Macallan as they sought a suitably impressive vessel for their 60 year old whisky.
This is the first of five label styles we will introduce that are all from the iconic cask 263 of 1926 Macallan 60 year old. Of the just 40 bottle equivalent from cask 263, only 12 were given the labels designed by Peter Blake, which depict the workers at the Macallan distillery in Blake’s signature collage style. These amazing bottles represent 12 chances to own a limited edition Sir Peter Blake and a Macallan 1926 60 year old in one item.
The Macallan 1926 60 year old Peter Blake has held the action record only once, in 1991. Although the record price for this bottle was set in May 2018 when it sold at Bonhams Hong Kong for the equivalent of £817,000 – not a bad return over 17 years!
No.12: The Macallan 1926 60 Year Old Valerio Adami
Price held: 1996 – 2001
Prices: £12,000
The Macallan 1926 60 year old dominated the start of the records, and so it is the same whisky in a different bottle design that would take the record in 1996. Armando Giovanetti was Macallan’s Italian agent in the 1980s and he apparently suggested Valerio Adami when Macallan was looking for suitable artists to design labels for their, as then, oldest whisky.
Valerio Adami is an Italian painter who is well-known for his fragmented, abstract paintings. Originally influenced by Pop Art, Adami’s style has since progressed to a French post-expressionist style of work. Like Peter Blake, Adami was commissioned by Macallan to create just 12 labels for the Macallan 1926 60 year old bottles. However, there are records that at least two of these bottles have been lost or destroyed. One was reportedly opened and drunk many years ago, and another was smashed during an earthquake in Japan in 2011. This means that only 10 of these masterpieces remain, four less than its Fine & Rare counterpart.
The jump from £6,000 to £12,000 over 5 years might have been indicative of what was to come, but at the time a doubling of value was still completely extraordinary.
No.11 – 10: The Macallan 1926 60 Year Old Unlabeled
Record held: 2001 – 2002
Prices: £15,000, £20,150
The next two bottles to take the record would be astounding and yet wholly unmemorable. Records suggest that of the 40 bottles produced from the 1926 60 year old, only 24 were originally given labels (the ones designed by Peter Blake and Valerio Adami), apparently, the remaining bottles were left unlabeled so as to enable purchasers to put their own spin on this iconic whisky.
In today’s market that is completely unthinkable, as it is branding that gives a bottle value. However there is truth to this tale, as the Michael Dillon bottle we discuss later is one of these. Furthermore, in 2001 and 2002 the world record was broken at McTears Glasgow by two unlabeled bottles of Macallan 60 year old.
First in 2001 an unlabeled Macallan 60 year old 1926 sold for £15,000, taking the world record price from the Valerio Adami designed bottle. In 2002 another unlabeled bottle sold for £20,000, although this bottle would hold the record for less than a year.
No. 9: Dalmore 62 year old The Kildermorie
Record held: 2002- 2007
Prices: £25,878
Pictured: The Dalmore 62 Year Old Mackenzie
Finally in 2002 the early hold Macallan had on the records was broken and Dalmore became the most expensive whisky in the world. In the mid-2000s, Dalmore distillery was considered to be what Macallan is now – the pinnacle of luxury whisky. However in 2002 Dalmore took the luxury whisky world by storm when it released the first bottle from a super exclusive 12 bottle series of 62 year old whisky and proceeded to take the record.
Each of the 12 bottles in the series has a different name, this particular bottle was named for the Loch where Dalmore draws the water for its whisky making. Just eleven of these bottles were ever released on the market, as one bottle was kept by the distillery. Additionally, the bottles were not released all at once, rather in intervals, therefore increasing the appetite for this bottle amongst whisky collectors and investors.
Dalmore’s rebranding efforts in the early 2000s, combined with the bottling of aged stock such as this helped to shift public perception of single malt Scotch whisky and initiated a chain of events that led to where we are today. Arguably, Macallan’s rebrand of the late 2010s could have been driven as a response to Dalmore success in the early 2000s.
The Dalmore Kildermorie took the record from Macallan in 2002, breaking the previous record by over £5,000. The same bottle would hold the record once again in 2017, but in 2007 it would pass the crown to Bowmore.
No.8: Bowmore 1850
Record held: 2007 – 2011
Price: £29,400
The Bowmore 1850 is, perhaps, the most controversial bottle on this list. The only Bowmore to break a world record, this whisky was alleged to be bottled in 1850 by W&J Mutter. In 2007 it became the most expensive whisky in the world when it was sold at McTear’s Glasgow for £29,400, an astonishing price for a single bottle of whisky in 2007. The buyer fought off stiff competition from Bowmore themselves in order to claim the bottle for their collection.
Bowmore distillery is located on Islay and is known for series such as the Black Bowmore, as well as the Black Bowmore Aston Martin DB5 edition, and the recent Bowmore ARC-52, another collaboration with Aston Martin. Today, Bowmore is very highly renowned for its luxury bottlings.
However, back in 2007 there were doubts raised over the authenticity of the Bowmore 1850 bottle. Archivists at the Scottish Brewing Archive suggest that the bottling date is more likely to be sometime during the 1890s than in the 1850s. There are a couple of reasons for this speculation.
Firstly, the bottle claims to be hand-blown. However, there are features that would suggest that the bottle is machine-made, which would be unusual in the 1850s. Secondly, the label features a trademark, which again, would be abnormal for the 1850s. Although, it is possible that the label was made after the whisky was bottled. Thirdly, the fill-level and cork were also in remarkably good condition for a bottle that was said to be over 150 years old. And finally, the clear glass that the whisky is bottled in would have been an unusually expensive choice for the time.
This bottle has not appeared at auction since the 2007 sale, nor has it been spoken about at length in the press or by Bowmore themselves. Whatsmore, the above comments are all speculation, and the bottle has never been proven younger than it claims to be. And as such, £29,400 seems a small price to own a piece of Bowmore’s history.
No. 7: Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve 55 year old
Record held: 2011 – 2016
Price: £46,850
Glenfiddich is one of the most famous whisky brands in the world, not only among whisky connoisseurs but also to anyone who has ever walked down the spirits aisle in the supermarket. The distillery has long produced some of the best-selling single malts in the world but was not always known for its high-end vintage malts.
The founder of Glenfiddich was William Grant, a name that has become synonymous with distilling innovation in the whisky world. In 2011 the Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve 55 year old was bottled to celebrate the 110th birthday of Janet Sheed Roberts, William Grant’s granddaughter. It became the most expensive whisky in the world when it sold at Bonhams in December 2011. She died in 2012, by then holding the title of the oldest woman in Scotland.
Only 11 bottles of this whisky were released, one for each decade of Janet’s life. The cask was filled in 1955 when Janet was 54 years old and matured in warehouse 29 at Glenfiddich until 2011. This exceptionally rare bottle pays homage not only to the oldest woman in Scotland but also to the enduring legacy of the Grant family that Glenfiddich continues to hold dear.
The sale of this bottle represents a £17,450 jump in price compared to the previous record four years earlier. It is around this period that the whisky market we know today was beginning to emerge, and we can see that as the inflation of the world record price for the most expensive whisky continues to grow more rapidly year on year.
No.6: Glenfiddich 1937 64 year old
Record held: 2016 – 2017
Prices: £68,500
In 2016 Glenfiddich took the record again, this time with a 64 year old whisky distilled in 1937. The Glenfiddich broke the world record at Bonhams for £68,500, obliterating its pre-sale estimate of £35,000, and breaking the previous world record by over £21,000.
Only 61 bottles of this bottle were ever released after being bottled in 2001. The whisky was laid down in 1937 and spent 64 years maturing in cask 843. The bottling of a 64 year old whisky in 2001 ensured that Glenfiddich was ahead of its time.
The rare bottles of Glenfiddich on this list serve as a reminder of the distillery’s duality, and the ability of their single malts to both be a supermarket favourite and amongst the most expensive whiskies in the world. Glenfiddich is a distillery for every man, as well as the affluent.
No.5: Dalmore 62 year old The Kildermorie
Record held: December 2017 – May 2018
Price: £114,000
In December 2017 the Dalmore 62 year old The Kildermorie bottle would return to the top of the ranks as the world’s most expensive bottle of whisky. It would break another record as it became the first bottle to sell for over £100,000 (see notes at the end if you are thinking of disagreeing with us).
No.4 – 3 The Macallan 1926 60 year old Valerio Adami
Record Held: May 2018 – October 2018
Price: £814,018 and £848,750
The king is dead, long live the king… In May 2018, at Bonhams Hong Kong, the world record would finally return to Macallan after a 16 year hiatus, and it would do so in spectacular fashion. Technically you could say the record was broken twice in this auction, as both a Peter Blake and Valerio Adami bottle both sold for over £800,000 equivalent. However Bonhams only claim the Valerio Adami £814,018 as a record and as such we have gone with their opinion.
In October 2018 the Valerio Adami bottling would break its own record, this time at Bonhams Edinburgh. The bottle would sell for £848,750, a modest increase, although the record would stand for less than a month.
While the +£800,000 prices might not seem much if you are aware of the current record, you have to remember that up to that point, the world record bottle prices had been increasing by around 20 – 50% between records, which was often over several years. Not only was this a 800 fold increase, it was also over just five months. Of course, that was not the end of 2018’s records, not by almost £400,000.
No.2 The Macallan 1926 60 year old Michael Dillon
Record Held: November 2018 – October 2019
Price: £1.2 million
The fourth bottle style for the Macallan 1926 60 year old on our list of most expensive whisky bottles in history, was designed by Michael Dillon. Dillon was commissioned by Fortnum and Mason to hand paint one of the unlabeled bottles, creating a completely unique piece of art.
Dillon is an Irish artist who was born in County Louth, Ireland. He is best known for his long-running career as a decorative painter who mainly focuses on murals. He has undertaken commissions in many parts of the world and has collaborated with brands such as Fortnum & Mason.
The one-of-a-kind Macallan 1926 60 year old Michael Dillon bottle features a beautiful impression of the Easter Elchies house on the Macallan estate. The hand-painted bottle is presented with a wooden presentation case and a certificate of authenticity from Macallan.
This bottle was presented at auction in November 2018 at Christie’s London. It would go on to grab headlines worldwide when it became the most expensive whisky in the world and the first whisky bottle to sell for over one million pounds. The £1.2 million bottle hasn’t been seen at auction since. It would be the most expensive bottle in the world for just 11 months.
No. 1 The Macallan 1926 60 year old Fine & Rare
Record held: October 2019 – current
Price: £1.5 million
The Macallan 1926 60 year old Fine & Rare is the most expensive bottle of whisky in the world. The fifth label design for the iconic 1926 60 year old and the most infamous bottle on this list, it sold at Sotheby’s London for £1.5 million in October 2019.
As we have said, just 40 bottles of the Macallan 1926 60 year old were ever produced, and all hailed from a single cask: cask #263. Cask #263 was a Spanish oak sherry hogshead into which spirit was filled, way back in 1926.
After slumbering in Macallan’s warehouse for almost 60 years and surviving the second World War and multiple downturns in the market that might have seen the cask sold or bottled, the cask was discovered by Hugh Mitcalfe – former Marketing Director at Macallan – during an inventory of Macallan’s casked stock in the early 1980s. The ABV had, amazingly, held above 40% (42.6% ABV) making the whisky suitable for bottling as a single cask release. So that is just what Macallan did.
In 1986, cask #263 was decanted into 40 bottles. A whisky this special required some very special labelling. Two label designs were commissioned, one by Peter Blake and one by Valerio Adami, but these labels would adorn just twelve bottles each. As we know from the earlier record, at least two bottles were sold unlabeled, and one was commissioned by Fortnum and Masons to be painted by Peter Dilon. That left 13 bottles. We know that at least twelve of these would go on to be rebottled in Macallan’s Fine and Rare in 2004, although it is unclear what fate has befallen the final bottle – did it become part of the Fine and Rare, had it already been sold, or does it remains with Macallan in some form?
Arguably, the Macallan 1926 60 year old Fine and Rare has the plainest label of the set (of the bottles that have a label). It is also likely one of the more common (it wasn’t released until 2004, so less chance of being drunk, plus we know for a fact that only 10 Valerio Adami bottles remain and there is only 1 Michael Dillon bottle). Why has this bottle become the most expensive bottle in the world, and consistently retained the title? We speculate that part of the appeal of this version of the Macallan 1926 60 year old is that it is also the figurehead of the Macallan Fine & Rare Collection.
The Macallan Fine & Rare Collection began in 2002 and aims to showcase the fantastic range of vintage whiskies bottled by Macallan. The 1926 is the oldest of the whiskies in the collection, which boasts vintages from the 1920s all the way until the 1990s with many more to come.
The Macallan 1926 60 year old Fine & Rare is also needed to complete a vertical of all versions of the Macallan 1926 60 year old. As far as we are aware no one has yet managed to build such a vertical – or they are keeping it very quiet if they have. It would be an impressive feat indeed, especially considering it would set you back almost £5.5 million. As the Fine and Rare label was the last of the bottles to arrive on the secondary market, it may have been riding on the renown built by the previous sales. But as this bottle has repeatedly made £1million at auction and the Peter Blake and Valerio Adami labelled bottles have not, it is likely something to do with branding, and how the values of those bottles are perceived.
And so, despite the modest packaging, the Fine & Rare 1926 60 year old is the most expensive whisky of all time, having broken the record in October 2019 at Sotheby’s London, selling for £1.5 million. Thanks to the slow and steady rebrand that Macallan has undertaken since the 1980s, the provenance and mystique of this bottle has built up over the years. It is now considered the bottle of whisky for serious whisky collectors to own.
As a result of the Fine & Rare dominance, some of the rarer and more intriguing 1926 60 year old bottles have been overlooked. Whether because of a lack of publicity, or fewer lots coming to auction, the Peter Blake, Valerio Adami, and Michael Dillon bottles have yet to break the £1.5 million barrier.
Excluded results
For those of you reading this who are keen researchers or have followed the market closely you may be ready to question some of our results. Specifically there are three results from 2010, 2012 and 2014 that could be added to the list but which we have excluded for reasons we will explain below.
In 2010 a Macallan in Lalique 64 year old Cire Perdue 1.5L decanter sold for £288,000 at a charity sale. In 2012 another Glenfiddich 1937 55 year old sold for £59,350 at a charity sale, then in 2014 a Macallan ‘M’ Lalique 6litre decanter sold for £477,405.
Sources suggest the Macallan 64 year old Cire Perdue was recognised as a world record at the time, however, as a 1.5litre bottle it has been excluded from our list. We have chosen to exclude results from charity sales in general because charity auctions are renowned for creating anomalously high results that do not reflect the true market value of an item. The ‘M’ decanter has been excluded because of its non standard bottle size.
Conclusion
|
Record held |
Bottle |
Price |
Location |
|
1983 |
Macallan 1928 50 year old |
£1,100 |
Christie’s |
|
1991 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Peter Blake |
£6,375 |
Glasgow |
|
1996 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Valerio Adami |
£12,000 |
London |
|
2001 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Unlabelled |
£15,000 |
McTear’s Glasgow |
|
2002 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Unlabelled |
£20,150 |
McTear’s Glasgow |
|
2002 |
Dalmore 62 year old, The Kildermorie |
£25,878 |
McTear’s Glasgow |
|
2007 |
Bowmore Bottled 1850 |
£29,400 |
McTear’s Glasgow |
|
2011 |
Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve 55 year old |
£46,850 |
Bonhams |
|
2016 |
Glenfiddich 1937 64 year old |
£68,500 |
Bonhams |
|
2017 |
Dalmore 62 year old, The Kildermorie |
£114,000 |
Christie’s London |
|
2018 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Valerio Adami |
£814,081 |
Bonhams Hong Kong |
|
2018 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Valerio Adami |
£848,750 |
Bonhams Edinburgh |
|
2018 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Michael Dillon |
£1,200,000 |
Christie’s London |
|
2019 |
Macallan 1926 60 year old Fine & Rare |
£1,500,000 |
Sotheby’s London |
The continuous breaking of a world record is not something that is often done so many times within such a relatively short period of time. Further, as the table and graphs show, the astronomical rise in prices over the last five years seen over the general whisky market is reflected in the price for the most expensive bottles of whisky during this period.
2018 was an incredibly impressive year for the whisky market. The numbers show a very noticeable jump in price during this year, not to mention the fact that the record was broken four times in this year alone.
As with all sudden and sharp rises within a market, there are questions as to how much longer this record-breaking can continue at this rate.
With vintage statements and age statements seeming as important as they do in the success of the bottles above, releasing whiskies with high ages and impressive vintages seems key to holding the world record. It will be interesting to see what happens as the industry attempts to keep up with ever-increasing demand for luxury high age statement whiskies and balance that against their existing stock and the need to release older and older whiskies.
In 2022 alone we have seen the record for the oldest bottle of whisky broken twice, first by the the Glenlivet 80 year old Gordon & Macphail, and more recently the Macallan Reach 81 year old. However, neither of these bottles have yet broken the world record, in fact the Glenlivet 80 year old has failed to sell for more than £100,000 yet.
This suggests that history and provenance is as important as age and vintage. The Macallan Reach may be a very impressive bottling, but it does not quite hold the same mystique as, say, the Macallan 1926 60 year old with its years of auction results, mysterious unlabelled bottles, and unique labels created by infamous artists. There is a certain charm around a bottle that does not necessarily expect to break records.
Today, Macallan and other distilleries such as Bowmore know all too well that their bottles have the potential to break records and they design them to try to become the most expensive bottle in the world. Perhaps then, in the older bottlings, it is a lack of this awareness that whisky connoisseurs are so attracted to.
Only time will tell how and when the record will next be broken. Until then, we can only guess at which bottle will be the next to go down in history. Will the Macallan 1926 60 year old continue to dominate? Or will an unexpected star rise through the ranks?
