There are only two whiskies that have held the world record for most expensive whisky more than once; the Macallan 1926 60 Year Old, and Dalmore 62 Years Old “The Kildermorie”. The Macallan 1926 60 year old may be the first (and only) whisky to sell for over £1 million, but long before the million pound benchmark was set it was the Dalmore Kildermorie that took the growing whisky market by storm.
In 2002 the 62-year-old whisky smashed expectations, and its pre-sale estimate, to become the most expensive bottle of whisky in the world. The whisky knocked Macallan off the top spot, upending the secondary market for years. Here are seven things you probably didn’t know about this record breaking scotch whisky.
The Dalmore Were The Underdog Usurpers To Macallan’s Throne
In the early 2000s we were in a similar situation to today’s whisky bottle market. Macallan were at the top and had been for two decades. Macallan’s early entry to the single malt market in the 1980s had proven beneficial and the combined efforts of the 1926 60 year old and Anniversary Malt 50 Year Old had firmly established the brand as a premium whisky and desirable collector’s item.
By contrast Dalmore were only just getting started. Prior to 2002 there was just one single malt whisky in Dalmore’s core range; other than the odd special release the rest of its whisky went into blends. The aspiring premium brand didn’t let that stop them.
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Dalmore were fortunate to have an extensive warehouse of aged whiskies, which they set to leveraging. In 2001 they won a trophy and gold medal at the International Wines and Spirits Competition. By 2002 they had introduced a 21-year-old and the Cigar Malt to their core range. By 2004 they had a visitor center, but they still sold under 280,000 bottles annually and had just 3 core single malt whiskies.
The Dalmore Became The World’s Most Expensive Whisky Before It Was Cool
Despite the relatively small size Dalmore were able to position themselves as a premium brand, and take the crown of world’s most expensive whisky from The Macallan. On December 4 2002 The Dalmore 62 Years Old “The Kildermorie” sold for £25,877.50 at McTears Glasgow. The bottle broke the previous record by more than £5,000.
The Kildermorie held the record until 2007 and this achievement marked the beginning of Dalmore’s transition into the premium sector. The brand’s transformation over the next 15 years was exemplary and key to them retaking the record in one of the most hotly contested points in the whisky market so far.
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Dalmore The Kildermorie One-Of-One, Or One-Of-Twelve?
Dalmore produced 12 bottles of the 62-year-old whisky that fills The Kildermorie, however each of the bottles was unique.
Rather than simply being numbered, each of the hand signed bottles had a specially commissioned label and was named after some aspect of the distillery. “The Kildermorie” was named for the loch that feeds the Alness River, where Dalmore draws the water it uses for its whisky. The other bottles were: The Matheson, The Ardross Estate, The Alexander III, The Alnes, The Mackenzie, The Sinclair, The Cromarty, The Black Knight, The 1939, The Barnard and The 12 Pointer.
So while the 12 bottle series is already incredibly rare, each of the bottles is also a stand alone collector’s piece. A fact which no doubt helped it achieve two world records.
Whisky From 1868
Another lesser known fact about this series from Dalmore is that the 62-year old whisky was a vatting of four casks. Of which only the youngest was 62-years-old.
Scotch whisky carrying an age statement can be a blend of different aged whiskies, but the age of the youngest spirit is the oldest age it can be described as. Today distilleries and warehouses have meticulous stock records. Their oldest casks are some of their most precious stock and so are looked after accordingly. This wasn’t the case even twenty years ago. It wouldn’t be the first time a distillery “found” some very old whisky in a forgotten corner of the warehouse.
Unfortunately for The Dalmore the Scotch Whisky Association guidelines were a bit stricter that when the Macallan found and bottled their 50 year old anniversary malt under 40% ABV. That meant that when Dalmore came across four exceedingly old casks they had some work to do to make them useable.
The twelve bottles in the series were labelled as 62-years-old as that was the age of the youngest cask. However an advertisement from the time this was released explains how the bottles were filled from a combination (known as vatting) of four casks. Those four casks dated from 1868, 1878, 1926 and 1939.
Yes, you read that correctly. Some of the whisky used in this series dates from 1868! As far as we are aware, that makes the whisky in those twelve bottles some of the oldest officially bottled whisky we are aware of.
The First Bottle To Sell For Over £100,000
In 2017 the secondary whisky market was almost unrecognizable compared to when Dalmore took their first record in 2002. The market was already showing signs of the mammoth shifts that were to come. However no standard size bottle had yet to break the £100,000 mark.
In 2015 Dalmore was third in the collector’s rankings according to RareWhisky101’s Full Year Report 2015, but by 2017 they had dropped out of the top ten and into twelfth position.
In 2016 the Glenfiddich 1937 55 year old had become the most expensive whisky in the world when it sold for £68,500 at Bonhams.
Dalmore had worked hard over the last 15 years, but they were not quite at the top. So in 2017 when The Dalmore 62 Kildermorie returned to auction it was with a £40,000 to £60,000 pre-auction estimate that suggested good, but not record breaking potential.
The Kildermorie eventually sold for £114,000, almost double the top estimate. That once again made it the most expensive bottle in the world and the first standard sized bottle to break the £100,000 mark.
As an aside, before fact fans jump in the comments to correct our records; yes, two bottles of Macallan had previously exceeded £100,000 at auction. However, the team at Mark Littler Ltd who compiled the data we’ve used generally exclude non-standard bottle sizes and charity auctions when assessing records. The Macallan in Lalique Cire Perdue 64 year old and Macallan ‘M’ in Lalique were 1.5 and six liter decanters respectively. Adjusting for size the Macallan ‘M’ in Lalique doesn’t exceed £100,000 per bottle. The Macallan in Lalique Cire Perdue 64 year old does exceed £100,000 when adjusted per bottle, but as it was sold in a charity auction we still exclude it because of the inflation effects of charity auctions.
Fifteen Years Of Hard Work For Six Months Of Fame
The combination of super limited 12 bottle release and containing by far the oldest scotch whisky in the world for the time were undoubtedly part of what allowed Dalmore to retake the record breaking price in 2017. However between their 2002 and 2017 records Dalmore also made significant investments into their brand to build the foundations for their growth.
Between 2002 and 2017 Dalmore renovated their visitor center twice. They also introduced an enviable core range of aged single malts, which was in turn complimented by special releases from their impressive back catalog of casks.
As impressive as the sale, bottle and work by Dalmore was, this time round Dalmore’s 62 year old whisky held the record for just six months.
2018 was a transformative time for the secondary scotch market and ultimately marked The Macallan’s return to dominance. By May 2018, just six months after the Dalmore topped £100,000, two bottles of Macallan 1926 60 Year Old sold for more than £800,000. By the end of 2018 the record sat at £1.2million.
This truly astounding transition marked a transformation within the market as a whole. Since 2018 the record for most expensive whisky has been broken 5 times. Each time by bottles from the same Macallan series, the record price for a single bottle now sits at over £2.2million.
Record Breaking Whisky For “Just” £266,200
The Dalmore is the only distillery other than The Macallan to have held the title for most expensive whisky in the world twice. It is an astounding whisky; both highly limited edition and containing exceedingly old whisky.
Despite being both older and more limited edition than Macallan’s 1926 60 year old, the current record price for any of the 12 bottle series is “just” £266,200. That record was set in 2020 at Sotheby’s when two bottles from the series came to auction. The Mackenzie and The Cromarty each sold for more than double the top pre-sale estimate of £75,000 to £100,000.
While I’m not by any means suggesting more than a quarter of a million pounds for a single bottle is “cheap,” if you look at it relative to the Macallan 60 year old it does appear good value.
Of course, whether you look at whisky or other collectables, the market will show you it is not just measurables like age and limited edition numbers that define an item’s price. There are other more intangible things that contribute to worth. And until everyone else works out what that is, we’re probably stuck with Macallan at the top.
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