Sotheby's to Sell Macallan 1926 at First Auction Held at a Distillery

On October 9, Sotheby's will hold its first-ever sale at The Macallan Estate in Speyside, Scotland — the house's debut auction staged at a Scotch whisky distillery. The top lot is "The Macallan Fine & Rare 60 Years Old 1926," carrying a high estimate of £2.2 million ($3 million).

The whisky was distilled in 1926 and bottled six decades later, in 1986, after maturing in sherry-seasoned oak cask No. 263 at The Macallan distillery. Only 40 bottles were drawn from the cask. Fourteen received the "Fine & Rare" label; 12 were designed by British artist Sir Peter Blake and another 12 by Italian artist Valerio Adami. Two were left unlabeled, one of which was later hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon.

The bottle at auction is one of the original 14 "Fine & Rare" examples. Its estimate of £1.7 million to £2.2 million ($2.2 million to $3 million) puts it in position to rival the record for a bottle of whisky, set by another Macallan 1926 at Sotheby's in London three years ago, when an Adami-labelled example sold for £2.2 million ($2.7 million).

"'The Macallan 1926' stands as one of the most iconic and coveted spirits ever produced," Jonny Fowle, Sotheby's global head of whisky and spirits, said in a statement. "To celebrate its centenary with the first-ever auction held at a Scotch whisky distillery is a landmark moment for the world of whisky collecting."

The sale arrives as the broader rare-whisky market has cooled. Knight Frank's latest Luxury Investment Index, drawing on data from Rare Whisky 101, found that rare whisky bottles fell 13.6 percent over the 12 months to mid-2025 and dropped 25.3 percent over five years. At the very top end, though, bottles with exceptional rarity and provenance continue to command extraordinary results.

The buyer base has shifted as well. Fowle told ARTnews that when he joined Sotheby's in 2019, around 80 percent of the house's whisky buyers were in Asia. "That's moved swiftly westward," he said, with the US now the leading country by number of buyers.

Fowle draws a line between buyers who drink their whisky and those who collect it. "There's a natural cut off at around the £5,000 mark," he said. Above that threshold, buyers think much harder before opening a bottle.

"There's a sort of wealth to enthusiasm ratio," he said. "You'll find that actually wealthy people, they kind of under-drink their wealth. They could afford to drink, you know, £10,000 bottles every day, and they tend not to. Whereas people who are super enthusiastic will over-drink their wealth."

Another headline lot is a special version of "The Macallan's Romantica Collection" created specifically for the Scottish sale. The set comprises three bottles featuring work by Blake, Adami, and Dillon, bottled at 85.2 proof. Only two examples of each artist edition were made at that strength: one set goes to auction, and the matching three-bottle set remains permanently in The Macallan's archive. Estimated at £60,000 to £100,000 ($80,000 to $130,000), the auction set comes with a bespoke oak cabinet containing original materials connected to the artists' work.

Further notable lots include "The Macallan The Reach 81 Years Old," estimated at £90,000 to £140,000 ($120,000 to $185,000), and the complete Macallan in Lalique Six Pillars Collection, estimated at £260,000 to £350,000 ($340,000 to $460,000). Lalique, the French crystal maker, released the six-decanter collection with Macallan between 2005 and 2016.

Fowle credits the distillery with an early grasp of whisky's collector appeal. Macallan, he told ARTnews, "had an eye on the way people liked to collect whisky at a time when other people weren't really taking interest in the collector market." That foresight, he explained, left the distillery "sort of ahead of the game" — positioning it, a century on, to test whether record-level demand survives a cooling market.