The Macallan 1926 Whisky Has Once Again Broken Its Own Most Expensive Bottle' Record

Here's hoping you haven't cracked a bottle of The Macallan 1926 during a dinner party recently. Granted, the odds that you happen to be in possession of one of the 24 bottles that featured artwork by either Sir Peter Blake or Valerio Adami is highly unlikely — which is part of the reason the coveted bottles have been on an incredible streak of breaking the record for most expensive whisky ever sold over the past year. One of the Adami bottles did it again today, selling for the equivalent of $1.101 million.

For those in need of a recap, The Macallan 1926 began its amazing surge back in April when two bottles of the 60-year-old Scotch, which was originally released in 1986, were sold at retail for about $600,000 each. When two similar bottles hit the auction circuit individually in May, expectations were high, but those bottles were bid up to truly outrageous prices. The first bottle became the first standard-sized, 750-milliliter bottle to ever sell for over a million dollars. Then, just three hours later, the second bottle set an even higher record, fetching a remarkable $1.1 million.

Needless to say, it seems those in possession of one of these rare bottles figured it was time to sell, and so another bottle — one featuring Valerio Adami's artwork — was auctioned off in Edinburgh today. Though exchange rates obviously change (the last auction took place in Hong Kong dollars), today's bottle sold for £848,750, according to The Drinks Business, a number more than £30,000 higher than the price in British pounds for the last bottle sold. At around $1.101 million, this latest sale can be considered, once again, the most expensive bottle ever.

"I am delighted at this exceptional result," Martin Green, whisky specialist for Bonhams, the auction house behind the sale, was quoted as saying. "It is a great honor to have established a new world record, and particularly exciting to have done so here in Scotland, the home of whisky. Bonhams now holds the record for the three most valuable bottles of whisky ever sold at auction."

Meanwhile, don't necessarily expect this to be the end of The Macallan's 2018 string of record-breaking auctions. Apparently, Sotheby's is set to auction off one of the 1926 Peter Blake bottles later this month.

Oh, and by the way, The Drinks Business also says that, though the whereabouts of all 24 bottles aren't entirely known, it is believed that one of the bottles was indeed drunk. Make all the jokes you want, but in retrospect, that definitely sounds like a tragedy.