The New World's Largest Bottle of Whiskey Could Be Worth Nearly $2 Million
Fine Scotch is a sipping drink, with bottles often sitting open for years in on the shelf before they've ever finished. But if you drink Scotch a bit faster, then this bottle might be for you: It's bigger than an entire liquor cabinet!
Courtesy of Fah Mai Holdings Inc.
On September 8, whisky-focused investment firm Fah Mai Holdings Group and alternative assets company Rosewin Holdings teamed up with the independent bottler Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky to officially break the Guinness World Record for "Largest Bottle of Scotch" with a 311-liter bottle that stands about 5-feet, 11-inches tall. The bottle reportedly took over an hour to fill — using a blend of whisky from two casks — but the results were worth the wait: The previous record (set by Scotch brand The Famous Grouse in 2012) was bested by an impressive 83 liters.
Equally impressive is the quality of the Scotch used: two sister casks of 32-year-old Scotch from the highly-prized Macallan distillery, a brand that also holds the record for the most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold. "To put it into perspective, a single 70-centiliter bottle of original 30-year-old Macallan Oak sells for £4,000 to £5,000 [about $5,500 to $7,000] and a similar independent bottling fetches £3,000 plus [over $4,150]," explained Fah Mai owner Louis Haseman and Rosewin owner Daniel Monk in a joint statement. "What we have here in our mega bottle alone is around 444 of those. We'll leave you to do the maths on this." (FYI, it's at least $1.84 million dollars.)
Courtesy of Fah Mai Holdings Inc.
The bottle itself is also custom-made, with artwork featuring 11 of the world's greatest explorers — intended to highlight upcoming expeditions and promote their charities. Fah Mai and Rosewin will be bottling the remaining Scotch from the two casks that did not make it into the record-breaking bottle to create "The Intrepid" collection. Only 14 of these 12-bottle sets will be produced, with each one featuring not only a small replica of the original 311-liter bottle, but also a bottle each dedicated to the 11 explorers that adorn the original.
Then, at some point later this year, the record-breaking bottle itself will be auctioned off with the hope that it will break the record for the most expensive single bottle of Scotch ever sold — though it will be cheating a bit by being over 400-times larger than that bottle. Apparently, if the auction price is higher than around $1.8 million, 25 percent of the additional proceeds will be donated to Marie Curie, a British charity benefitting those facing terminal illnesses.
