The Macallan builds its identity around six pillars, from its small stills to its sherry-seasoned oak casks.
But in truth, there’s one single bottle that has done more than any of those marketing messages to elevate the brand. The Fine and Rare 1926, the first bottle of wine or spirit to exceed $2m at auction, has shaped The Macallan’s position as the world’s most collected Scotch whisky.
There were just 40 bottles of that 60-year-old vintage. They were never sold publicly and handed to private clients sporadically over several years. The first known private sale in 1987 valued the bottle at a then-record of $8,000. Since then, examples of the 1926 have surpassed that mark a further six times and traded for over $1m on eight occasions since 2018.
“It arrived into the market as the most expensive thing you could buy, and it’s never yielded that position,” says Jonny Fowle, global head of spirits at Sotheby’s and lead auctioneer the last time the bottle sold in 2023, for $2.7m. “It stands above the industry and has power over the industry. Anytime the 1926 is sold, it’s going to be front-page news.”
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For The Macallan, the 1926 remains its strongest brand asset, but four decades on it’s also the benchmark for everything that follows. Which brings us to the Romantica Collection, a new 1986 vintage that is being unapologetically pitched as the natural successor to Scotch whisky’s most celebrated and valuable bottle.
Romantica is cut from the same cloth as the 1926: an exceptional Scotch whisky aged in a single first-fill sherry-seasoned oak cask. The poetic connection comes from the year 1986: this liquid started its maturation in the same year the 1926 was extracted from Cask #263.
The label design further strengthens the bond. The trio who collaborated on bottle designs for the 1926 (pop artists Sir Peter Blake and Valerio Adami, and landscape artist Michael Dillon) are back. Each has created a label in their distinct style to form a three-bottle collection, of which only 86 exist. While Dillon is a spritely 68-year-old, both Sir Peter and Adami are in their 90s. How did The Macallan coax them back into their studios?
“It was an easy conversation”, says global creative director Jaume Ferràs. “Peter and Valerio are in a moment where they are reflecting a lot about their life. They’re very conscious of legacy. I think the chance to go back 40 years after 1986 offered them a bit of nostalgia, but also the opportunity to build their legacy a little bit more.”
If recreating the magic outside the bottle was easy, repeating the feat inside was not. Some of the qualities that set 1986 apart are not only unrepeatable but unpalatable to today’s market. Fowle says: “The 1926 was a real world first. Sixty-year-old whisky in 1986 was crazy, given that The Macallan released the first 50-year-old in 1983. Only three years later, they managed to add a whole decade on.”
The market is now used — and increasingly indifferent — to very old whisky. The record for the oldest Scotch has been broken four times since 2021, twice by The Macallan. Romantica, at 39 years old, doesn’t rely on age. You may think that gave lead whisky maker Euan Kennedy a wider selection, but you’d be wrong.
“The whisky-making team gets a handle on absolutely every single cask by the time it’s eight years old,” Kennedy says. “And it’s when we’re looking at those casks, even at that early age, that we’re earmarking them for the future. In any given year, it might just be five or six that we think could tell a specific story in the future, even though we don’t know what that story is.
“When we started work on the 1986 project, it was almost like there could only be one. When you get to that age in the inventory, there’s just a handful of casks, and we’re very close to them. When we knew what we wanted to do, the flavor that was in the glass, we felt it had to be this one.”
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It’s easy to see why when you taste it. On the nose, it’s layered with stewed orchard fruit and ginger, alongside a faint tropical lift of lychee. The palate follows with peach, lychee, dark cherry, and aged oak. For all its character and complexity, it’s an unmistakable hint of peat smoke that defines it. The Macallan has not used peat in its production since 1988, and that subtle wisp places it firmly in another era.
Priced at $105,000, the Romantica Collection is an easy sell to The Macallan’s long list of private clients. What will be more interesting is seeing how it fares on the secondary market. “I’ve got strict guidelines around collecting,” says Fowle. “Is the brand strong? Does it have transparency of information? Is it vintage specific? How limited is it? Is it of good quality?
“Having tasted it, I would say the quality is very good. I was really impressed by it. And then only 86 sets, by Macallan standards that is extremely rare, and that’s really refreshing. It’s what people have been asking for: genuine scarcity. That makes it a good collectible.”
And what effect will this have on the 1926? “This release is more a celebration of ’86, not ’26,” says Fowle. “I don’t think that has any real effect on the 1926 itself. That remains a unique entity. If one came to auction today, I suspect it would break its own record.”
