A cask of rare scotch whisky has set a new world record after selling for £16m ($20mn) to a private collector in Asia. The single malt dates to November 1975 and smashed the previous record of £1m ($1.2mn) set in April this year, the Financial Times reports.
As reported by The Guardian, Thomas Moradpour, the president and chief executive of Ardbeg’s owner, Glenmorangie, a subsidiary of the LVMH luxury goods group, said the record-breaking cask was a source of pride for the local community. He said the people of Islay had seen the distillery come back from the brink of extinction to become “one of the most sought-after whiskies in the world”.
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Known as Cask No 3, the whisky was produced at the 207-year-old Ardbeg distillery, on the Scottish island of Islay. It sold for more than twice the amount the distillery and its entire stock was bought for in 1997. The distillery will draw around 88 bottles of whisky from the cask in each of the next five years and deliver them to the buyer. That’s about £36,000 ($43,000) per bottle. The record sale comes after the supermarket Morrisons accidentally priced bottles of scotch whisky at just £2.50 ($3), a 93% discount from its usual price of £36 ($43), last month.
Bill Lumsden, the head of distilling and whisky creation at Ardbeg, said, as reported by The Guardian, “I’ve really only tasted a whisky like this two or three times in my career. “It has an emotional, comforting quality to it I find hard to put into words.”
(with inputs from agencies)
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