A few months ago, a bottle of whisky made headlines around the world when it sold for a record $2.7M.

A big number is always going to attract eyeballs… but sometimes it can distract people from the real story hiding just beneath the surface.

So this week, we’re bringing you the story behind the dollar signs. 

~100 Years in the Making

When The Macallan’s Marketing Director Hugh Mitcalfe stumbled across cask #263 in an unsuspecting corner of their warehouse in the 1980s, he had no way of knowing that the entire world of spirits was about to change forever.

Inside the forgotten cask sat a 1926 vintage, having long ago surrendered most of its 250 liters to the angels, leaving just 30 liters behind for the humans.

Despite initial concerns over the state of the decades-old whisky, The Macallan’s longstanding attention to detail paid off.

Tucked within much-lauded casks from George Gorrod, a coopery in Aberdeen from which the original casks were sourced, its strength never wavered, still maintaining an abv above 40% (hardly a drop off from its natural 42.6%). 

The 1926 Macallan 60-year-old was born.

With enough left in cask #263 to produce 40 bottles, it eventually yielded five releases:

1. Blake Label

2. Adami Label

3. Custom Design

4. Unlabelled

5. Fine & Rare

🥃 Blake Label

The distillery teamed up with artist Sir Peter Blake (creator of the cover art for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and released an inaugural class of 12 bottles from the 1926 vintage in 1986, each affixed with a Blake-designed label.

The following year, a bottle sold for over $5K —  the first of many times the series would break the record for the most expensive spirit ever sold.

🥃 Adami Label

The 2nd edition featured labels designed by Valerio Adami and hit the market in 1993.

Though, much to the dismay of whisky lovers across the world, just 10 of the 12 bottles included in this iteration of the 1926 Macallan 60 Year Old remain; one meeting its end during a 2011 earthquake in Japan and the other believed to have been opened and consumed many years ago, likely the only one of the 40 ever drank.

🥃 Custom Design

In 1999, the third offering brought a new twist as buyers were given the opportunity to work with a designer to create their own label. 

The result was one of the most lauded bottles in the entire series, hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon. Selling in 2018 for $1,538,640, described by Christie’s as “unquestionably the 'Holy Grail' for whisky collectors… truly one-of-a-kind.”

This mark temporarily gave the bottle world record distinction… until passing the baton to another bottle from the cask.

🥃 Unlabelled

Then came the mysterious 'Unlabelled Bottles' — a pair of which were sold by Macallan with an invitation to the buyer to design their own labels.  Despite selling for record highs in the early 2000s, little is actually known about this release.

🥃 Fine & Rare

Finally, the last release from the most coveted cask in whisky history joined the recently debuted Fine & Rare series — adding ~13 of these incomparably significant bottles to the luxurious collection now considered an emblem of the ultra-high-end vintage category.

Considered the “figurehead” of the Fine & Rare collection, that branding likely explains the $1,864,078 record sale of a bottle of 1926 Macallan with the Fine & Rare label in 2019.

In November 2023, after yet another record sale — this time a bottle of Adami fetching $2.7M — the collection has hit exit velocity, escaping the confines of whisky world and landing on the front page of nearly every mainstream outlet imaginable.

With 10 world records across its series and growing awareness, there is no question from now on every appearance of a bottle at auction will be a watershed moment, with eagle-eyed reporters and historians preparing to crown the latest record sale.

Until Next Week...