Sometimes forgetfulness can prove to be a good thing. It sure was for an expatriate in Scotland who forgot his rare cask of whisky in a Scottish distillery’s warehouse for more than 30 years. The distillery in question is the famed Macallan distillery in Moray, Scotland. As per Whisky Hammer, the online portal brokering the auction, the man paid $6,500 to fill the 374-liter cask of single malt Scotch in May 1988 and then forgot all about it.
Thirty-four years later, the whiskey matured beautifully at Macallan’s warehouse in bond before the distillery reminded them. The sought-after whiskey defeated the 1989 Macallan sherry hogshead cask in 2020 to be the most expensive per-bottle whisky cask ever sold at auction. According to the tasting notes, the 1988 Macallan is depicted as having notes of salted caramel, orange marmalade on the nose, and a palate of rich spices with a finish of honeycomb and sweet orchard fruits. The cask would yield approximately 534 x 70cl bottles of the 34-Year-Old Macallan whisky.
Only last year, Macallan sold a cask of its 1991 Scotch along with a specially-commissioned NFT for a whopping $2.33 million! The barrel is believed to contain about 600 bottles’ worth of 51.1-percent ABV Scotch for an average per-bottle price of about $3,880.
Update: The 34-year-old Macallan 1988 cask was picked by a U.S. buyer for nearly $1.3 million. The sale shattered the previous record of $572,000 fetched last year by a 30-year-old re-racked Sherry hogshead, also from The Macallan.
[Whiskyhammer Via: Forbes]
