Over the weekend, a single bottle of Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky sold for $2,337,000 HKD ($298,879 USD) to become the most expensive bottle of Japanese whisky ever sold at auction, reported Hypebeast. Carrying an age statement of 50 years, it belonged to a 2011 release made up of just 150 bottles — each signed by Suntory’s Master Blender Fukuyo Shinji. (For reference, the 12-year expression of the same whisky, now widely available in the U.S., starts at $64.)
While the figure seems astronomical, even absurd, this weekend was not the first time a single bottle of Japanese whisky has demanded six figures at an auction. In 2016, a similar 50-year-old Yamazaki fetched roughly $129,000. Both feel like bargains when compared to the most expensive whiskey ever sold, however. In 2014, a hand-blown decanter filled with The Macallan M sold for $628,205.
