New Macallan Whisky is 72 Years Old & Retails for $60K
To drink, or not to drink?
Image: The Macallan
All month, the food world has been shocked as investors and collectors drop record sums for increasingly rare bottles of alcohol. Coming off a duo of record-breaking sales, the Macallan distillery is releasing a new bottle that costs as much as a new Mercedes.
To mark the opening of its brand-new distillery, The Macallan is releasing a limited collection of 72-year-old Scotch, complete with a custom crystal bottle and bespoke wooden presentation case. Only 600 will be sold, and each bottle will retail for the not-insignificant sum of $60,000.
The Macallan 72 Years Old, which was distilled in 1940, is the oldest whisky that the brand has ever put into a bottle. Despite its age, it has a “deceptively light” color. The Macallan claims that it “carries an exquisite balance of strong, sweet oak with the peaty spirit shaping its refined character.”
“The whisky delivers surprise after surprise as aromas of fruit follow distinctive hints of peat, all the way through to the back of the mouth where it is finished off with a lingering hint of rich fruit and oak,” says master distiller Nick Savage.
We’ll just have to trust him on that one.
Its glass decanter—branded “The Genesis Decanter—was custom-made by the Alsatian crystal makers at Lalique. The case was designed by Burgess Studio and made by the cabinet makers at NEJ Stevenson. The wood-and-glass ensemble was based off the new distillery building, which was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.
Some would argue that those that collect wine and spirits only to trade them later are merely wasting them, and that the bottles would be better served if people drank them. While we at Genius Kitchen are the types that like to drink the bottles we buy, there’s no denying that in 30 years these ones will be worth more than their purchase price. And if they’re anything like those 60-year-old Macallans that sold earlier this month for over a million dollars per piece, we could be talking about a markup of 1,000 percent or more.
Maybe buying a bottle for the price of a Benz makes sense after all.
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