THE £1.6M DRAMS
Two bottles of rare whisky fetch world record price – and their work-of-art LABELS helped seal the deal
THEY are two of the world’s rarest whiskies, unseen in public for more than three decades.
And the two bottles set a new auction record yesterday at a combined price of £1.56million, amounting to around £39,000 a nip.
The ‘Holy Grail’ bottles of Macallan, adorned with artwork by Beatles artist Sir Peter Blake and Italian painter Valerio Adami, went under the hammer at a Bonhams’ Fine and Rare Wine and Whisky auction in Hong Kong.
The Macallan Peter Blake, 1926, 60-year-old went to a phone bidder for £751,703, followed by the Macallan Valerio Adami, 1926, 60-year-old for which a bidder in the room paid £814,081. The price tags almost doubled the original estimate of £340,000 to £425,000 each.
The previous auction record for any single malt whisky was set in 2014, also in Hong Kong, when a Macallan six-litre ‘M’ decanter by Lalique fetched £463,000. Bonhams Asia head of fine wine and whisky Daniel Lam said: ‘These two bottles are the most significant whiskies ever produced in the 20th century and presented a once-in-a-generation opportunity for collectors to acquire the Holy Grail of Macallan.
‘Active bidding came in from around the world but we saw new bidders from south-east Asia including Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia, reflecting the growing appetite and appreciation for whisky among Asian collectors and further reinforcing Bonhams’ market leadership in Hong Kong in the field of whisky.’
The record-breaking whisky was bottled in 1986, and Macallan commissioned Blake and Adami to design labels for exclusive and limited editions to offer as corporate gifts to the distillery’s most valued customers. Only 24 bottles – 12 of the Blake label and 12 of the Adami label – were produced. Blake and Adami are among the most highly acclaimed 20thcentury pop artists.
Blake is most famously known for co-creating the Beatles’ 1967 Sgt Pepper album cover, chosen by Rolling Stone magazine as the number one album of all time from a list of 500.
Adami is famed for painting bold, flat forms outlined in thick, black lines, in a style reminiscent of comic art.
The ultra-rare bottles were elegantly presented in specially commissioned cabinets or tantaluses, based on a traditional ‘brass and glass’ distillery spirit safe.
Other highly priced whiskies at the auction included an Expression of Karuizawa 52-year-old, which went for £231,035, setting a new record for a single bottle of Japanese whisky. The auction raised £4,406,694 in total.