A decanter of the world’s oldest single malt whisky – distilled in Scotland during World War II – fetched a record price of nearly half a million pounds at auction yesterday.
The Macallan “The Reach” 81-year-old comes from a single sherry seasoned oak cask laid down in 1940, making it the world’s oldest aged Scotch. Released by the Speyside distillery in February last year in a limited edition of only 288 decanters, each was cradled on a bronze sculpture of three hands.
One of the rare decanters went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong yesterday, where 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 between collectors online and on the phone.
