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Macallan: World's 'most valuable' whisky to go for auction

Tristan Fewings The Macallan Adami 1926Tristan Fewings
The Macallan Adami 1926 will come under the hammer at Sotheby's in London on 18 November

A bottle of single malt whisky from The Macallan distillery is set to go for auction next month, with an estimated price of up to £1.2m, auction house Sotheby's has said.

It said The Macallan 1926 was known to be the most sought-after Scotch whisky.

This was confirmed when a similar bottle was sold in 2019 for a record-breaking £1.5m.

The latest sale will be the first time since then that a bottle from the same cask has been brought to auction.

The cask was distilled in 1926 and aged in sherry casks for six decades before being bottled in 1986.

Just 40 bottles were produced and they were reportedly not made available for purchase - instead, some were offered to The Macallan's top clients.

The appearance of any of these bottles at auction over the years has resulted in extraordinary results.

The Macallan Adami 1926 will now come under the hammer at Sotheby's in London on 18 November, with an estimate of £750,000 to £1.2m.

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."

Tristan Fewings Jonny Fowle, Sotheby's Global Head of Spirits, with The Macallan Adami 1926_(3)Tristan Fewings
Jonny Fowle, Sotheby's global head of spirits, said: "The Macallan 1926 is the one whisky that every auctioneer wants to sell."

Sotheby's said the 40 bottles from the 1926 cask had been labelled in different ways. A maximum of 14 were decorated with the iconic Fine and Rare labels, one of which was the record-breaking bottle sold in 2019.

Two bottles were released with no labels at all. Of these, one was hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon. When sold in 2018, it became the first bottle of whisky to surpass £1m.

Of the remaining bottles, 12 were labelled by pop artist Sir Peter Blake and a further 12 bottles were designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami.

Although 12 bottles of The Macallan 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 at least one of them has been opened and consumed.