Rare bottle of Mallacan 1926 whisky sells for record £1.5m

'This fantastic result is testament to the quality of the collection'

(Getty Images)

A very rare bottle of whisky has sold for a record-breaking £1.5m at an auction in London.

The Macallan 1926 bottle was sold by Sotheby’s and had been estimated to go for £350,000 to £450,000.

The whisky was bottled in 1986 from cask number 263, which produced just 40 bottles.

The auction house has not revealed who bought the prized beverage, but described the 60-year-old single malt as the “holy grail” of whisky.

The bottle featured as part of the “ultimate whisky collection” comprising 467 bottles sold in 394 lots for a total value of £7,635,619.

Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s spirits specialist, said: “This fantastic result is testament to the quality of the collection.

“It was remarkable to see so many iconic bottles break records – homage to the importance of distilleries such as Bowmore, Brora, Springbank and, of course, The Macallan.”

Prior to now, the record for a single bottle of Scotch sold at an auction was £1.2m, which was another bottle from the same cask as The Macallan 1926 sold in November last year.