An investor who bought a cask of rare whisky more than 30 years ago has sold it for more than £1 million.
The 374-litre cask had been distilled at The Macallan Estate in Speyside, Scotland, and was bought by a whisky expert on May 5th 1988.
He had left the tipple in the distillery since then and had to be reminded it was still maturing in the Moray warehouse after more than 33 years.
The investor, who is thought to a be an individual based in the US, decided to put the cask up for auction instead of finally collecting it, and received a number of bids on the ‘forgotten’ barrel.
It sold for $1.295 million (£1.017 million), breaking the world record for the most amount of money spent on a cask of whisky.
According to Heromag, the former owner of the whisky originally bought it for £5,000, which means they have made £1.012 million on their 34-year investment.
This cask would yield 534 70cl bottles of single malt whisky from The Macallan, where the price starts at £60 per bottle for a 12-year-old tipple. However, this increases to £3,400 for a double-cask whisky over 30 years old.
The distillery has been in operation since 1824 officially, though it is likely whisky has been produced here for considerably longer.
According to the website: “We create our unparalleled single malts in a home worth of the spirit it embodies.”
The 485-acre estate beside two miles of the River Spey and with more than 60,000 trees and over 70 species of wildlife, birds and fish, certainly embodies a lot of spirit.
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