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While conventional logic would tell you that the most expensive and rarest whiskies in the world have been sold at auction, what might surprise you is that some of the finest, most expensive bottles of whiskey in the world have been sold at of all places: the airport. Likely though this was nowhere near the forty-dollar neck pillows, trashy novels, and overpriced preflight snacks. At the Istanbul Airport in Turkey, a bottle of The Yamazaki 55-Year-Old Whiskey just sold for $559,200! Here’s the craziest part, it isn’t even weird for such an amazing bottle to be sold at the duty-free store! The buyer even got a heck of a deal too, a bottle of the same year sold at auction in 2020 for $795,000.
In 2018 the most recent string of major collectors purchases or “whiskey madness” as Food & Wine called it began with the purchase of two bottles of The Macallan 1926 Scotch for $1.2 million… from the Dubai Airport! And that was just the beginning, similar bottles have sold for around $1 million, and the overall record holder for the most expensive bottle sold for a little under $2 million.
This particular buyer, an as-yet-unnamed Chinese shopper made this auspicious purchase in rather straightforward fashion. The bottle was on display, they put in a bid and won out against eight other potential buyers. But with a $559k price tag, there is a definite difference between simple and easy.
“[This sale] provides further evidence that special products can help to achieve amazing results for airport retail and that Istanbul Airport is the perfect site to offer rarities like The Yamazaki 55 Year Old to a particularly discerning international clientele,” Unifree Duty Free CEO Ali Senher said
One Expensive Airport Whiskey
The single-malt whiskey purchased from Unifree Duty Free, a Yamazaki 55-Year-Old is the oldest single-malt whiskey available from the esteemed House of Suntory distillery. According to Suntory, it is “A spiritual blend highlighting the Mizunara cask whisky distilled in 1960 under the supervision of founder Shinjiro Torii and the White Oak cask whisky distilled in 1964. Each matured, amber drop reveals a complex and mystical Yamazaki-ness the world has yet to discover.”
Fifth Generation Chief Blender Shinji Fukuyo described it,
‘‘ Very old Scotch Whiskies gave me this impression of them being perfect Greek sculptures with beautiful toned beauty. Instantly impressive as a piece of art. But the Yamazaki 55 is more like an old Buddhist statue. Calm and mysterious. It takes time to take in its inner beauty with the smell of Japanese incense and stripped old wood, like the Toshodaiji Temple in Nara. ’’
The beautifully presented Yamazaki is 92 proof, with a nose of robust redolent of sandalwood and a bouquet of well-ripened fruit. The palate is a mix of sweet and bitter with a woody notes from the acclaimed Mizunara casks with a slightly bitter finish and a scented woody fragrance with a hint of smoke.
