$94,000 !!

photo from Globe and Mail

This is not my usual review from my own tasting of a particular single malt.

A note here - 26 Oct '12 - from the Globe and Mail 'Life & Arts' section of Wednesday 17 Oct '12;

"A (very) wee dram of liquid gold" by Beppi Crosariol, wine & spirits writer wine@globeandmail.com

I normally only get to see the Globe and Mail newspaper when I am in Cape Breton for the summer but tonight, there in my local mail was a letter from a long time friend (who evidently subscribes to the Globe and Mail when he is back home in Hartford, Ct) from my Nova Scotia days with the above article inside.

A bottle of 55 year old Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts (a granddaughter of distillery founder William Grant - and until her death last April at 110 years of age, Scotland's oldest living person) Reserve went at auction in March for $94,000.00 U.S. - that is $3,600 an ounce, not quite double the cost of gold. AND when Beppi Crosariol got to sip a 5 milli-litre sample (he had actually got a 10 milli-litre sample direct from a cask maturing in a Scottish warehouse but he shared it with John Maxwell, restaurant owner in Toronto, a friend and astute whisky aficionado) he was greatly pleased to find that in this case the maturation age had really done its' duty; "It tasted of malted barley, praise be, with ripe pear, hay and heather, nuances of Glenfiddich's younger bottlings" and there were farther complimentary comments, "spicy nutmeg, fresh and delicate, a faint whiff akin - odd as it may sound - to cured meat".

What was most interesting to me is that Mr. Crosariol gave voice to what I personally believe after having read it earlier elsewhere and verified to my own satisfaction with the my own limited samplings, to wit; "Not all spirits get better with each passing year (of maturation) in oak (barrels). Like high-performance athletes and runway models, most peak somewhere between 15 and 30 (years) " and he continues on, but in general that is the best of aging with exceptions on either end - as in the 3 year old McCarthy's Oregon Single Malt I posted earlier, and as he points out very eloquently in his article the 55 year old Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve.

Final observation - there have been much higher prices paid for single malts. For example The Guinness World Book of Records shows that the highest price yet paid for single malt was $460,000 in 2010 for a Macallan 64 year old (with a substantial part of the price due to the custom Lalique crystal decanter) but few, if any, such sales result in public comment as to taste. Thanks to Mr. Crosariol for his sharing of such a wonderful adventure.

If you are interested farther, please go to the website listed at the beginning of my note here to peruse this very interesting article. 

Himself!