Yamazaki 50-Year-Old First Release

Bidding commences on 20 May through Bonhams in Hong Kong

No more than a dozen bottles of the Yamazaki 50-Year-Old First Release are thought to remain in existence, rendering it the rarest of fine Japanese whisky in the eyes of collectors. When it was first released in 2005 in a limited batch of 50 bottles - many of which ended up being opened and quaffed in local Japanese whisky bars - it was the oldest edition produced by the Yamazaki distillery at the time. Its ultrarare status as the king of Japanese whisky was cemented when it broke auction records in 2018 and 2019, which goes a long way to explaining its sizeable pre-auction estimate of HK$3.5 million to HK$4.5 million.