Rare Macallan sells for almost £850,000 at auction

A bottle of the extremely rare The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 60 year old sold for a world record price of £848,750 at auction today.

The rarity was sold at Bonhams Whisky Sale in Edinburgh, after it had been estimated that it would sell from between £700,000-900,000.

The previous world record was set by Bonhams in May this year when another bottle of The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 was sold for £814,081 .

Bonhams Whisky specialist in Edinburgh Martin Green said: ‘I am delighted at this exceptional result.

‘It is a great honour to have established a new world record, and particularly exciting to have done so here in Scotland, the home of whisky. Bonhams now holds the record for the three most valuable bottles of whisky ever sold at auction.’

The whisky was bottled in 1986.

Macallan commissioned two world-famous pop artists – Valerio Adami and Peter Blake – to design labels for a very limited edition of 24 bottles – 12 of the Adami and 12 of the Blake labels.

The bottle is elegantly presented in a specially commissioned cabinet or Tantalus, based on the traditional ‘Brass and Glass’ distillery spirit safe.

It was bought by the vendor direct from the Macallan distillery for an undisclosed sum in 1994 and was part of a wider collection from the same owner offered in the sale.

Although 12 bottles of The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 were produced, it is not known how many of them still exist.

One is said to have been destroyed in an earthquake in Japan in 2011, and it is believed that at least one of them has been opened and drunk.

Valerio Adami (born 1935) is an Italian artist famous for painting bold, flat forms outlined in thick, black lines, in a style reminiscent of comic art. He is among the most acclaimed of 20th Century pop artists.