A Bottle of The Macallan Scotch Just Sold for $2.8 Million at Auction

(Photos: Sotheby’s/The Macallan)

A bottle of The Macallan 1926 Fine & Rare single malt sold for £2.125 million, or about $2.8 million, at a Sotheby’s auction in Scotland on Oct. 9, setting a new record for the expression and the highest auction price ever achieved by a bottle of whisky in U.S. dollars.

The 60-year-old Scotch was distilled in 1926 and bottled in 1986. It was the headline lot at Live from The Macallan Estate, the first auction ever held at The Macallan Distillery in Speyside.

The bottle’s £2.125 million price was the second-highest ever paid for a bottle of whisky in British pounds, behind a 1926 Macallan that sold for £2,187,500 in 2023. However, the latest sale set a record in U.S. dollars at $2,807,975, according to Sotheby’s.

The bottle also set a new auction record for The Macallan 1926 Fine & Rare, with the previous record of £1.5 million, or about $1.9 million, established in 2019.

The sale was part of a 42-lot auction featuring rare Macallan whiskies sourced almost entirely from private collections. The auction brought in £3.3 million, or $4.4 million, exceeding its high estimate of £3.2 million. All lots sold, and 86% achieved prices above their high estimates.

“More than a century after it was distilled, it continues to stand alone as the benchmark for rarity, provenance and desirability in whisky,” Sotheby’s Global Head of Whisky and Spirits Jonny Fowle said in a news release.

The 1926 vintage is among the most sought-after bottles in Scotch whisky collecting. After spending 60 years in a single sherry-seasoned oak cask, No. 263, just 40 bottles were drawn in 1986.

Those bottles received several different designs. A maximum of 14 carried the Fine & Rare label, 12 were designed by British artist Sir Peter Blake, and another 12 featured artwork by Italian artist Valerio Adami. Two bottles were left unlabelled, one of which was later hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon.

The sale also marked the centenary year of the 1926 vintage, with the auction taking place at the distillery where the whisky was produced.

Other Highlights From the Macallan Auction

The auction’s second-most valuable lot was a complete set of The Macallan in Lalique Six Pillars Collection, which sold for £350,000, or about $462,490.

The six-decanter series, created with French crystal maker Lalique, was released between 2005 and 2016 and contains some of the oldest and rarest single malts bottled by the distillery.

The Macallan’s Reach 81 Years Old also sold for £131,250, or about $173,434. Originally unveiled in 2022, the single malt was drawn from one sherry-seasoned oak cask and presented in a mouth-blown glass decanter held by a bronze sculpture of three hands.

A special Macallan Romantica Collection created for the auction sold for £162,500, or about $214,278. The collection featured work by Blake, Adami and Dillon, with proceeds benefiting three charities selected by the artists and their representatives: Graeae Theatre Company, Cancer Research UK and Associazione VIDAS.

The auction was Sotheby’s second-most valuable whisky sale, behind The Ultimate Whisky Collection in 2019. Sotheby’s now holds the top three prices for bottles of whisky sold at auction, according to the auction house.