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Macallan Adami 1926 could sell for £1.2m
A bottle of The Macallan Adami 1926 will be auctioned by Sotheby’s next month with an estimated sale price of up to £1.2 million (US$1.45m).
Aged in Sherry casks for six decades, just 40 bottles of The Macallan 1926 were created in 1986.
Sotheby’s will sell The Macallan Adami 1926 bottle in London on 18 November, with advance bidding opening on 1 November.
It is expected to fetch between £750,000 (US$908,900) and £1.2m.
The bottle is one of 12 to feature a label designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami in 1993.
It is the first 1926 bottle to have undergone reconditioning by Edrington-owned Macallan Distillery ahead of auction.
This process involved replacing both the capsule and the cork, applying new glue to the corners of the bottle labels and taking a 1ml liquid sample to test against another 1926 bottle at Edrington’s Glasgow office.
Described as the world’s most valuable whisky, bottles of The Macallan 1926 has fetched eye-watering sums in recent years.
In 2019, a bottle of the 60-year-old whisky was sold for £1.5m (US$1.9m) by Sotheby’s, setting a new auction record for any bottle of wine or spirits. It was one of only 14 bottles featuring the Fine and Rare label.
World’s ‘most desirable’ whisky
Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s global head of spirits, said: “The Macallan 1926 is the one whisky that every auctioneer wants to sell and every collector wants to own.
“I am extremely excited to bring a bottle to a Sotheby’s auction for the first time since we set the record for this vintage four years ago.
“Working alongside our friends at The Macallan Distillery to recondition and perform clinical analysis on this bottle and liquid has elevated it to an unparalleled status.
“Now, as the bedrock for all Macallan 1926 authenticity and with its condition approved by master distiller Kirsten Campbell, this must surely be the most desirable bottle of whisky ever to come to the market.”
Across 2018 and 2019, an auction record was broken three times by three different Macallan 1926 variations (Sir Peter Blake, Michael Dillon, Fine and Rare).
Two bottles were released with no labels at all. Of these two, one was hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon, and became the first bottle of whisky to surpass £1m (US$1.2m) when it was sold by auctioneer Christie’s in 2018.
Of the remaining bottles, 12 were labelled by pop artist Sir Peter Blake in 1986.