What are some of the most expensive liquors you can buy? Most of the bottles on this list are for collection purposes. Collectors love stocking on good liquor. And the beauty is, with each passing day, the price of these alcohols might go even up.
Usually, Scotch whisky and Japanese whiskey brands dominate the luxury price market. For example, Macallan, a brand of Scottish liquor is one of the most expensive whiskeys you can buy. The company uses premium ingredients from the barley to the barrels, and as a result, you have to pay a hefty price to get your hands on a Macallan single malt whiskey.
On our list of most expensive whiskey bottles, Macallan has more than half of the liquors.
Macallan Red Collection
This red collection is among the priciest whiskey bottles with a price of close to $1 million ($975,756 to be exact). It went for auction at Sotheby’s in London in November 2020. The bottles had a modest pre-sale estimate of close to $250,000, but bids soon increased the price.
This collection features six highly aged Scotch whisky bottles, including two of the oldest ever released. The red collection contains a 74-year-old and a 78-year-old Scotch whiskey.
It is a rare and limited collection made with exclusive labels.
Macallan Lalique Six Pillars Collection
This legacy collection contains sex crystal decanters from revered French glassmaker and jeweler Lalique. And it also contains some of the rarest single malts aged from 50 to 65 years old. Each of the bottles has been single releases.
Each bottle is a highly prized individual Scotch whiskey. And when combined, they contain an exclusive and luxurious collection. It went up for auction in April 2017, exceeding all expectations for the price and selling for $993,000.
Macallan 1926 60Y Labels
In 1986, the company released only 40 bottles of The Macallan 1926 following a 60-year maturation in Sherry-seasoned oak casks. They were priced at $25,000 at the time. The company gave 12 bottles to artist Peter Blake to design and 12 to Valerio Adami. They put the label Fine and Rare on the remaining labels.
Two bottles of the Blake and Adami label expensive whisky appeared at an auction in Hong Kong in May 2018. The Blake label reached a price higher than $1 million, while the Macallan Valerio Adami label reached a price near $1.2 million.
Yamazaki 55YO
In August 2020, an auction in Hong Kong broke the record for the most expensive single bottle of Japanese whisky. A bottle of Yamazaki 55 years old sold for $845,000, establishing a new record for Japanese whiskey bottles.
There are only 100 bottles of this rare whisky, each only available to Japanese customers. The particular rare bottle was distilled in the 1960s and matured in a Japanese Mizunara oak cask. It was then transferred to a white oak cask in 1964. To this day, it remains the oldest Japanese whisky available on the market.
Macallan Michael Dillon 1926 60-year-old
This bottle is one of the rarest whiskey bottles in the world. It is from the same 40 bottles line released in 1926. But the Macallan distillery gave only one bottle to the Irish artist Michael Dillon, making it an extremely rare whiskey. He hand-painted a design on the bottle.
The one-of-a-kind single bottle was initially released in 1999. It depicts the Macallan Speyside estate’s cherished Easter Elchies House in beautiful detail.
Nobody has ever seen the rare bottle until an auction in November 2018. It was the first Scotch whiskey to surpass the 1 million pound mark at a British auction. It sold for $1.5 million, or close to 1.2 million British pounds. It remains the second most expensive bottle sold at an auction. Read on to find out the first one. Spoiler alert: It is not a Scotch whisky.
Hanyu Ichiro’s Full Card Series
This Japanese whisky collection gained worldwide recognition in November 2020. It set a new world record when it sold for $1.54 million. The previous record for a Japanese set was $917,00, set during a Bonhams Hong Kong Sale in 2019.
Isouji Akuto founded the Hanyu distillery in 1914. But it was closed in 2000. Before closing, his grandson, Ichiro Akuto, took ownership of 400 casks from the distillery and hand-picked each whisky from a single cask.
The 54-bottle collection was released between 2005 and 2014 as part of the full card series. Each bottle represented a playing card in a deck of cards.
Isabella’s Islay
This is the most expensive whiskey bottle ever sold. And if you are asking how the hell this bottle reached a price of $6.2 million, just look at the bottle.
This premium whiskey is a prime example that sometimes the outside look is more important than what is inside. We often say do not judge a book by its covers, but this “book” has some luxurious covers. The bottle of Isabella’s Islay is a molded container fashioned from white gold and then crusted with 8500 diamonds and 300 rubies.
The Luxury Beverage Company of the United Kingdom made this bottle. It is only fitting that Britain made this bottle. After all, they are all about royals, queens, kings, and diamonds.
This special edition showcases the finest craftsmanship of the British Isles. What is inside? Well, a fine premium whiskey. But surely not better than a Macallan distillery whisky. At the end of the day, it is all about the diamonds.
Fans can also purchase a bottle without diamonds. That one costs $750,000. Big difference, right?
