An industry expert has claimed a record £16 million achieved at an auction held on Islay for a cask of whisky was “unprecedented” but “not an unrealistic price”.
Whisky expert Charles MacLean, who starred in the hit independent Scottish film The Angels’ Share, said the sale of the 47-year-old cask to a female collector in Asia was the equivalent of around £36,000 per bottle – and recently bottles have sold at much higher prices.
However, he added it was likely to be the highest price ever paid for a cask, which is a less common but increasingly popular way of buying and selling rare whisky.
He said: “There are many bottles that have sold at auction for more than that so that is not an unrealistic price.
“The idea of selling a whole cask of very old whisky and achieving this extraordinary high price is unprecedented.
The idea of selling a whole cask of very old whisky and achieving this extraordinary high price is unprecedented.”
Charles MacLean
“The highest price I have heard for the sale of a cask was £5.2m – this was three times that amount.”
A rare bottle of 72-year-old Glen Grant bottled by Elgin whisky firm Gordon and MacPhail sold for a record HK$937,500 (£100,009) at a sale at Bonhams Hong Kong in May.
The £16m price for the one-of-a-kind 1975 cask of Ardbeg Islay single malt Scotch is more than twice what the distillery’s owner Glenmorangie Co paid for the entire business in 1997.
The whisky company has been owned by French luxury goods giant LVMH since 2011.
The firm said “cask no.3” was the oldest-ever released by Ardbeg, adding it was “incomparably precious” since little single malt was produced at the distillery in the 1970s and it was closed through much of the 1980s and 1990s.
The family-owned luxury firm also pledged to donate £1m of the eye watering price tag to the local community.
Under the terms of the sale, the new owner will receive 88 bottles from the cask each year over the next five years, with age profiles of 46, 47, 48, 49 and 50 years old.
Ardbeg’s director of whisky creation, Dr Bill Lumsden, married two casks distilled in 1975 into one, known as a butt, in 2014 to create a sherried, smoky taste.
Mr Lumsden, who will oversee the cask’s ongoing maturation, said: “Cask no. 3 is an extraordinary taste of Ardbeg’s past.
Cask ‘really is one of a kind’
“Its aromas are nutty, herbal and smoky, while its tastes of tar, espresso coffee and spearmint have an astonishing finesse for a whisky of such age.
“So little stock survives from this era, that this cask really is one of a kind.
“And its complex flavours are testament to the extraordinary skill of the Ardbeg team who have cared for it over the decades.
“I look forward to exploring how it continues to evolve over the next five years.”
Ardbeg chief executive Thomas Moradpour paid tribute to the firm’s workforce.
He said: “This sale is a source of pride for everyone in the Ardbeg community who has made our journey possible.
“Just 25 years ago, Ardbeg was on the brink of extinction, but today it is one of the most sought-after whiskies in the world.
“That is a reflection of generations of hard work: from those in the stillhouse who craft our smoky spirit, to the warehouse staff who care for our casks over decades, to teams around the world who build the reputation of our whiskies with fans, bartenders and collectors.”
He added: “Today, our new stillhouse is working at full capacity to make more Ardbeg available than ever, and whisky creator Dr Bill Lumsden is busy imagining many more surprising smoky releases for Ardbeg fans.
“Because when a business like Ardbeg gets rewarded for 50 years of patience, it gives us the confidence to keep investing in the future of our distillery, and in our island community. The journey continues!”
What does a dram from a £16m cask taste like?
Mr MacLean said he has tasted the liquid in the cask that sold for £16m.
He said: “I’ve got canvas, hessian and leather-bound books, backed by linseed oil – I was reminded of a cricket pavilion.
“Following on from that, then there was treacle toffee or hard toffee, and then the taste was quite extraordinary because it was all imbued by a gentle smoke.
“I was taken straight back to a railway compartment in the 1960s or 1970s when there was still steam trains, the smell of steam, smoke and stale pipe tobacco.”
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