World’s oldest single malt from dark days of WWII lands in NZ
As Hitler’s Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and fears of a full-scale Nazi invasion grew, Scottish distillery workers moved fast on a final batch of special whisky.
Now, more than 80 years later, a rare bottle made from that World War II-era single malt has arrived in New Zealand and been sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When Macallan’s “The Reach” came on to the global market last year, it sent cashed-up whisky collectors and investors scrambling.
At 81 years old, it immediately became the world’s most aged single malt and was changing hands for huge sums.
Matured in a single sherry cask, it comes cradled by a bronze sculpture of three hands, each representing characters in Macallan’s history: the distillery workers of 1940; former Macallan chairman, Hollywood screenwriter and producer behind The Queen’s Gambit, Allan Shiach; and current Master Whisky Maker Kirsteen Campbell.
Macallan billed it as a tribute to “the people who made this precious whisky” and their “enduring spirit which never wavered”.
Taupō -based online retailer Whisky and More had a local collector get in touch, keen to get their hands on one. Only 288 were produced but they have been trickling on to the market over the last year — and no bottles were allocated for New Zealand.
The average global price currently stands at around NZ$670,000, according to wine-searcher. com.
Whisky and More director Floris Heijdenrijk put the feelers out to fellow brokers across Europe, the UK and America, trying to source one of the prized bottles.
And when Heijdenrijk heard one had popped up on mainland Europe, he moved quickly. “We snapped it up really quickly,” he said. “It’s quite a sensational bottle and a neat find for us.”
It arrived in Auckland last Wednesday and was transported to Heijdenrijk’s Taupō base in a large wooden crate.
It has since been sold again — for an undisclosed sum — but it’s understood that the bottle will stay in New Zealand.