The 80-year-old whisky from Glenlivet Distillery was put into an oak cask back in 1940.
A few years ago, the rare whiskey market — and especially the rare Scotch market — went through the roof, peaking at the most expensive bottle ever sold: a famed Macallan 1926 60-Year-Old Scotch selling for just shy of $2 million in 2019. Granted, since the start of the pandemic, the continuing escalation of these records has stopped. Whether that’s due COVID’s economic impact or the market simply maxing out is up for debate. But interest in rare whiskies has continued unabated. And since not every bottle sold can be a 1926 Macallan, sellers looking for a big payday have been focusing on other features that make their whiskies unique.
Since whiskey and aging go hand-in-hand, age is often the big selling point. Over the summer, the “oldest known bottle of whiskey” sold for well above pre-auction estimates — though the age of the bottle has nothing to do with the age of the whiskey inside. And on that note, last year, The Macallan released a 78-year-old whisky, billed as the “longest-aged” Scotch (as in, in the barrel) ever to hit the auction block. But in a different sort of escalating whisky battle, The Macallan can now kiss that record goodbye.