A little out of Reach for most of us! World’s oldest aged Scotch sold for a record £488k
A DECANTER of the world’s oldest aged single malt whisky – distilled in Scotland during the Second World War – fetched a record price of nearly half a million pounds at auction yesterday.
The Macallan ‘The Reach’ 81-yearold comes from a single sherry seasoned oak cask laid down in 1940.
It was released by the Speyside distillery in February last year in a limited edition of only 288 decanters each cradled on a bronze sculpture of three hands.
One went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong yesterday, when it was sold to an anonymous online bidder for £488,500.
The whisky, which had belonged to a private collector in Asia, more than doubled the £200,000 upper estimate after a five-minute bidding war.
It smashed the previous record of £300,000 for a bottle of the world’s oldest aged Scotch sold at auction, set at Sotheby’s in London in October.
Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s head of whisky and spirits, said the bottle was ‘highly desirable for collectors’, adding: ‘It is always an honour to be able to offer the world’s oldest whisky at auction.’
The Reach was laid down just before The Macallan distillery was forced to close its doors for the first time in its history.
The 41.6 per cent ABV whisky is described as deep auburn with notes including dark chocolate, sweet cinnamon and aromatic peat on the nose; treacle toffee, bramble jam, liquorice and wood smoke on the palate; and an ‘intensely rich, sweet and smoky’ finish.
It was presented in a mouth-blown hot-glass glass decanter, cradled on a bronze sculpture of three hands presenting three characters from The Macallan’s history.
Mr Fowle said: ‘That this whisky is highly desirable for collectors was in evidence before the auction began, with competitive bids playing out online.
‘Once bidding in the saleroom opened, determined collectors drove the final sale price ever higher, ultimately to more than four times over estimate – proving that age, rarity and provenance are key.’