Drink: A Look Inside the Glass

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At auction, you never know what's gonna happen.

It just depends on the day.

I mean, it was a very memorable day.

It was all sorts of different emotions, kind

of excitement filled with a bit of nervousness,

slightly worried that, you know, maybe it wouldn't achieve

what I thought it deserved.

You never know if people are gonna raise their paddle.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to Christie's.

I'm delighted that many of you can come here today

to witness what will hopefully be an epic moment

in history for whisky.

We are offering this morning the 1926 Macallan 60-year-old.

This is beautifully illustrated

with Michael Dillon's portrait

of the Easter Elchies House at Macallan.

And we should have plenty of interest here.

A specific bottle that we offered for sale

was from this legendary cask, distilled in 1926,

aged for 60 years, bottled in 1986.

Very limited production.

Only 42 bottles were actually bottled, really exclusive.

And this was hand painted

by the Irish artist Michael Dillon.

We'll start the bidding here at 800,000,

850,000 now in the room, 950,000 back in the room, 950,000.

We are holding up 950,000 pounds.

Where should we go from here?

Tim's bidder now at one million, one million pounds

with Tim's bidder at one million.

Last chance of fair warning,

then at one million for the 1926 Macallan.

And sold at one million.

On 29th of November, 2018 at Christie's in London,

we sold the most expensive bottle of scotch ever,

breaking the world record, which was a 1926,

the Macallan 60-year-old.

Macallan distillery, like all single malt distilleries,

is a product of one single distillery

and made in a single location.

The Macallan continues

to be produced in exactly the same way,

drawing on the same water and raw materials

and processes that has defined our unique spirit for years.

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It's all about perfect product,

whisky that's created to the highest possible standard.

And there's no question about that.

You know, you create it and go, that's not quite right

and it's just thrown away and you start again.

The whisky talks effectively

and tells you no, you know that by the nose, the taste,

and you just go back then to the beginning,

try different cask combinations

until it is the best that it possibly can be.

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Many historians would start

by saying the origins of whisky are obscure.

So it's not truly known.

It was obviously being made elsewhere by unknown people.

It is my belief that the secrets of distilling came

from Ireland to West Coast of Scotland and then to Islay.

They were using medicines based on spirits

from possibly from 1300.

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The first record of alcohol in Scotland dates from 1494.

It's in an Exchequer Rolls,

which is like a royal grocery list.

The first written reference to distilling the very start

to Friar John Cor by order of the king

to make aqua vitae, eight bowls of malt.

And of course it's described as aqua vitae, water of life,

which is directly translated into uisge beatha in Gaelic.

Distillers like Friar Cor

were capable of producing spirits in reasonable volume.

Eight bowls of malt might be expected

to produce around 200 liters of pure alcohol today.

The origins of distilling work were,

it was mainly done in abbeys and monasteries,

such as Lindores, where it's believed that Friar John Cor

hailed from Lindores Abbey in Fife.

Now it's not known what King James IV

and the good friar were doing with this spirit,

it does not tell us whether the distillate

was to be consumed and if possible,

whether it was consumed for pleasure

or used as a medicine or both.

It's been suggested that it might be used as embalming fluid

or as a disinfectant

or in connection with making perfume or gun powder.

Medieval texts make reference to all of these uses.

And then we come to today where when you buy a bottle

of whisky, you buy a hell

of a lot more than liquor in a bottle,

you're buying the blood of one small country.

There are regional differences.

There's differences between one distill another,

even if they're right next door to one another.

And these are the five official regions, Campbeltown,

Islay, Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside.

Campbeltown, it's got its hills, it's very pretty.

The Campbeltown character is slightly maritime,

slightly grubby, slightly old fashioned,

slightly dirty, dare I say it,

but wonderful, you know, really traditional.

Islay, you've got mountains up in the north,

but then it flattens down into mainly peat bog.

Islay whisky is traditionally smokey

and slightly salty, slightly maritime.

There are some distilleries there

which have made non-peated Islay whisky.

Within the Highland region,

some of the rocks up in the northwest Highlands

are among the oldest in the world.

You've got rugged mountainous terrain.

Most highland whiskies now are not peated

or very, very lightly peated, fragrant,

floral and fruity, very maritime.

You've got a great diversity, very, very elegant whisky.

Lowlands, sort of rolling hills

and great swathes of good hardwood trees.

Lowland whiskies tend to be lighter in style,

although, funnily enough,

in some cases the spirit is quite rich and heavy.

The overall impression is more rural,

fresher, more floral, sometimes.

The sweetest style of malt whiskies traditionally,

now non-peated whisky, as today, about two thirds

of the operating malt whisky distilleries

come from Speyside.

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So I'm from Speyside, I grew up here.

My husband's from here.

Everywhere you look, there's a distillery.

You know, on these cold, frosty light fog nights,

when you can smell the wash, the fermentation,

you can smell the hot draft going out

because it lingers in the air,

that was my normal and I thought that was normal

for the rest of the world.

Like I also didn't think I had an accent

until I started going other places in the world.

So as soon as you start to travel

and you go somewhere new, you're like,

where are there their distilleries?

And why don't they understand what I'm saying (laughs)?

So yeah, I think it took me quite some time to realize

that what we had in Speyside was special.

Hello.

And I guess you take for granted what's right

on your doorstep and you don't really appreciate

or understand that people from all around the world

know your very small rural part of Scotland

because of the whisky.

You know, that's what makes it so famous and so special.

So we have a new distillery on our estate at Macallan,

and that's where every drop of our liquid is produced.

Without a doubt, we have got

the world's most beautiful distillery

in our iconic building.

The way that we make whisky and our care, attention,

precision, I don't think that can change.

We've been making whisky legally at Macallan since 1824.

The process with three ingredients

hasn't actually changed that much since then.

The roof is one of the most complicated timber structures

in the world, comprising 1,800 single beams,

2,500 different elements and 380,000 individual components,

almost none of which are equal or the same.

We have the spiritual home, Easter Elchies House.

If you've ever seen a bottle of Macallan,

you'll see an image of the house.

The house really is a very special place.

There's a lot of history of Macallan

encapsulated into that house.

The distillery itself blends beautifully