First off, let’s get to the elephant in the room of why the hell anyone would pay thousands of dollars for a bottle of whiskey. Well, my brother and I were caught up in the idea of whiskey as an investment seeing bottles blow up in value and decided we could get into it, and where better to go than the good brand of Macallan. We bought this bottle together for the hefty price of 4500, 2250 split evenly, in hopes it would rocket up like the rest of the Macallan series we’ve seen, but alas our hopes were not rewarded here, with Macallan deciding after the first release to make this an ongoing release every year. So what does any good investor do when things go bad and the investment is worth the same as you initially paid for it many years later, but crack the thing open, shed your tears, and drink up the liquid. Before we get to the liquid inside, this whiskey comes in a giant magician’s box with mirrors all around it to apparently show off the liquid inside and there is even a handy little drawer under the bottle that will unveil the decanter’s actual crystal stopper for when you do open the bottle, after you remove the silver-topped cork with which it was bottled. The bottle itself is a Lalique crystal decanter with six facets to reflect the Macallan’s six pillars that weighs a lot and will be perfect to club over any burglars head if necessary. Now to the liquid: on the nose you are greeted with very old oak, think stepping into a fancy wood furniture store with polished oak, leather, ginger, cinnamon, slight hint of peat, dark chocolate and rich ripe dark fruits of fig, cherry and plum. The taste is extremely viscous and similar to a tawny port wine, but not as sweet. It feels almost like a dark maple syrup on the tongue with loads of cherries, plums, raisins, dark chocolate, and cinnamon, light peat and wraps around your tongue with that old oak coming close to an over-steeped black tea that sometimes overpowers really old whiskey, but in this case fades away right before the finish leaves you with a dark cherry, figgy pudding, dark chocolate, and old polished oak finish that lingers for minutes. Is this a bottle that I would recommend to anyone, no. This thing is probably meant to be a trophy or for the very rich. This is an unbelievable whiskey, but that price is also unbelievably insane. As for the trophy decanter and magic box, my brother has those at his place and keeps the decanter filled with something more fitting in our price range of Wild Turkey 101.
About this bottle
A 6-litre Lalique decanter of this single malt holds the Guinness World Records™ for the “most expensive whisky sold at auction” selling for the equivalent of $628,000 dollars. It took the Macallan’s master whisky maker, Bob Dalgarno, two years to source whiskies dating from 1940 to 1991. This blend contains some of the last whiskies barreled before the distillery ceased production at the onset of World War II and some very rare 1947 peated malts. The distillery briefly used peat due to post-war coal rationing and its relative high costs.
How it tastes
Measured across 14 flavor axes. Tap a note to find other bottles that lead with it.
Reviews
Showing the most detailed of 9 parsed reviews.
2018 release. Phenomenal and legendary stuff. Was aged in 7 casks including 1 from the 1940s. Loads of dark fruit, nuts, old oak spices, and berries with a touch of honey. Nose: Raisins, Blood Oranges, Ginger, Christmas Cakes, Prunes, Figs, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cranberries, Strawberries, Licorice, Nutella, Luxardo Cherries, Honey Palate: Raisins, Toffee, Cloves, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cranberries, Tobacco, Leather, Honey, Dark Chocolate, Walnuts, Christmas Cakes, Gingerbread, Blackberries, Mocha Finish: Raspberries, Dates, Luxardo Cherries, Prunes, Nutella, Cloves, Cinnamon, Tobacco, Dusty Library Shelves, Smoke, Almond Cookies
My firend had a bottle of this at his bachelor party, tried it with coke. Tasted awful, it has a weird smokey flavor that doesn't mix well
Tried this at Tales! Delicious although I expected a bit more. Seems a bit one note to me.
Thanks for sharing this review of such a stellar, historical dram! Slainte!
Appreciate the review... Can't wait to try this
3 more reviews were collected for this bottle. The longest ones are shown first.
Tastes like this
Closest flavor profiles across the whole catalog.