The Macallan ‘Adami’ 1926 has set a new world record and become the most expensive whisky sold at auction, selling for more than a million pounds above the pre-sale estimate. The whisky, one of only forty bottles produced by the distillery and bottled in 1986, sold for £2.2 million at Sotheby’s on 18 November, well in excess of its £750,000 – £1.2 million estimate. The ultra-rare bottles were originally only offered to the whisky brand’s top clients, rather the general public, but three different variations of the bottles have come to auction in recent years and broken world auction records. Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s Global Head of Spirits, said the record-breaking result was “nothing short of momentous for the whisky industry as a whole”, having previously described the The Macallan 1926 as “the one whisky that every auctioneer wants to sell and every collector wants to own”. Reconditioning Although the whisky has been aged in sherry casks for six decades, this is the first bottle to have undergone reconditioning by The Macallan Distillery ahead of being presented at auction. This process involved replacing both the capsule ( a swatch of which was taken to recreate an identical replacement made by the Austrian producer) and the cork, applying new glue to the corners of the bottle labels and taking a 1ml liquid sample to test against another 1926 bottle at the Edrington offices in Glasgow. The reconditioning and clinical analysis on this bottle and liquid has elevated it “to an unparalleled status”,
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Fine Wine
