Scotch whisky is truly a gentleman’s drink. In the most basic terms, Scotch is grain or malt whisky that is made in Scotland. There are five Scotch categories: single grain, single malt, blended malt, blended grain and blended Scotch. To legally be called Scotch whisky, the spirit needs to be aged in oak casks for a minimum of three years. If a bottle of Scotch lists an age-statement, the youngest whisky in the blend needs to be listed even if the blend also contains whiskies that are much older. Scotch is best enjoyed in a dram while sitting in a comfortable easy chair in front of a roaring fire.
You can purchase an extremely tasty bottle of Scotch for around $40. You can also splurge a little more and buy an older bottle for $100-200. The odds are, your average Scotch drinker doesn’t need to drink anything rarer than that to be completely happy. But, if you have the money, you can find bottles of the most expensive Scotch Whisky that range from $17,500 to $6.2 Million (although this one is more about the bottle than the whisky). We found bottles from some of the most well-known distilleries in Scotland, including The Dalmore, The Macallan, Highland Park, Glenfiddich and Isabella’s Islay.
Most Expensive Scotch Whisky in the World
Tell us what the most expensive bottle of Scotch Whisky you ever drank in the comment section below.
The Ten Most Expensive Scotch Whiskies in the World
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Highland Park 50 Year Old Single Malt
Price: $17,500
Highland Park, located in Kirkwall, Orkney, is the most northern distillery in Scotland. It was founded in 1798 by Magnus Eunson, a famous smuggler and all around interesting character. Their most famous offering is Highland Park 50. Not only does the bottle contain Scotch that has aged for fifty-years, it is also adorned with beautiful Viking-inspired silver designed by famous Scottish jeweler Maeve Gillies.
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Glenfiddich's 50 year-old Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Price: $33,900
This whisky is a combination of two different whiskies that were aged for fifty years in Glenfiddich’s barrel warehouse. Right before it was bottled, the two whiskies were mixed together before being aged for six more months in an American oak cask. The bottle is a piece of artwork as each is hand-blown by expert craftsman. You will know this bottle is truly unique when you see that it is individually numbered.
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The Dalmore 62 Single Highland Malt Scotch Matheson
Price: $58,000
Only twelve bottles of this extremely rare Scotch were made when this whisky was distilled in 1942. Each bottle was given a specific name related to Dalmore. Matheson, the most expensive bottle, was named for the owner of Dalmore, Alexander Matheson.
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The Macallan 1926 Fine & Rare
Price: $75,000
The Macallan Fine & Rare collection consists of the famous distillery’s oldest whisky. Each year, the distillery releases a new vintage. They consider the Fine & Rare collection to be a “liquid history” of The Macallan. The oldest release is The Macallan 1926.
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Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve-1955
Price: $94,000
Janet Sheed Roberts was the grand daughter of William Grant (of William Grant and Sons). She died in 2012 at the age of 110. This whisky was made to pay homage to everything she did for Glenfiddich. The barrel was filled on New Years Eve in 1955 when Roberts was 54 years old. It matured for 55 years and since the angels took so much from the cask, they were only able to fill 15 bottles of this extremely rare whisky.
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Dalmore 64 Trinitas
Price: $160,000
This whisky is really special. Because of the rules of blending whiskies, Dalmore needed to list the youngest whisky in the age statement. But, this bottle includes whiskies from as far back as 1868 as well as 1878, 1926 and 1939. Due to the rarity of the whiskies involved, Dalmore only released three bottles of this unique whisky.
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Dalmore 62
Price: $250,000
Good luck finding this extremely rare whisky. The last bottle was sold at Singapore’s Changi Airport for $250,000. Similar to Trinitas, Dalmore 62 contains whisky dating back to as far as the mid 1800s. The spirit was decanted into a hand-made crystal decanter that features a platinum cast that portrays Dalmore’s 12 pointer royal stag’s head. It also came with a hand-crafted wooden case that took more than 100 hours to craft.
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The Macallan 64 in Lalique Cire Perdue
Price: $464,000
This extremely rare offering from The Macallan was auctioned in 2010 for $464,000. It was the oldest single malt sold at the time and the proceeds of the auction went to charity. The whisky itself is a blend of three different whiskies that were aged in sherry-season Spanish oak barrels. They were filled in 1942, 1945 and 1946. The container is one-of-a-kind and crystal decanter designed specifically for this whisky.
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The Macallan M
Price: $628,205
The Macallan has a real knack for releasing extremely old, rare whiskies in unique containers to excite the whisky community. In 2014, a bottle of The Macallan ‘M’ was purchased at a Hong Kong auction for $628,205. The whisky itself is a blend of The Macallan whiskies that range from seventy-five to twenty-five years old. They were aged in sherry-seasoned Spanish oak barrels. The bottle is a 6 liter decanter made crystal that was hand-made by seventeen expert craftsmen.
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Isabella’s Islay
Price: $6,200,000
This bottle is sort of cheating its way to the top spot. There’s no disputing that the whisky in the bottle is tremendous, but the bottle itself is the reason this whisky is by far the most expensive in the world. This English crystal decanter is covered with a whopping 8,500 diamonds. But, that’s not all. It also contains white gold and 300 rubies. This bottle is the stuff of Blackbeard’s dreams. Once you have a bottle this fancy, it almost doesn’t even matter what’s inside. This bottle could be full of Gatorade and it would still be work $6.2 million. Isabella’s Islay is truly the most luxurious Scotch whisky in the world. That is, until someone else steps up and makes a fancier bottle.
