Would you pay nearly £8,000 for a dram of of vintage Scotch? If your answer is no, it turns out you’re right. Because, a Chinese millionaire Zhang Wei paid this eye-watering price of £7,600 ($10,000) on the world’s most expensive whisky shot in a Swiss bar. He boasted to his fans that it was the same age as his great, great grandmother would have been – 139 years old.
“When I came across a fine spirit from over 100 years ago, there wasn’t much struggle inside,” Zhang later wrote. “My grandma who accompanied me on this trip was only 82, yet the alcohol was 139 years old — same age as my grandma’s grandma.”
1878 Macallan
Zhang later described the experience on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform similar to Twitter, merely saying the whisky “had a good taste.” He stressed, though, that, “It’s not just the taste, but also history.”
Readers of Zhang’s blog pored over the photos he posted and began to notice some discrepancies in the bottle’s label and cork. Something didn’t seem right, so
analysts from Scotland were called in by the Waldhaus Am See hotel in St Moritz after experts questioned the authenticity of the 2cl shot.
It had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt. But analysis found that it was almost certainly not distilled before 1970.
It is believed to be the largest sum ever paid for a poured dram of Scotch. But fortunately, the hotel said it had accepted the findings and reimbursed the customer in full.
1878 Macallan
