'Heaven in a glass': Rare whisky expected to sell for $140K in Vancouver

Two extremely rare bottles of whisky are expected to sell for $140,000 each in Vancouver later this month, and one expert says whoever buys it likely won’t even drink it.

Distilled during the Second World War by Gordon and MacPhail, The Glenlivet 80-Year-Old is the world’s oldest single malt Scotch whisky. There are only 250 bottles available in the world, and the first one sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong for a quarter of a million dollars.

But interested collectors will have to enter a draw to even get the chance to pay the six-figure price tag at an event on April 26. 

Global whisky expert Nate Gana says he has no doubt the bottles will sell, and he expects their value will significantly increase.

“Vancouver has definitely never seen a bottle like this, this is something the world has really never seen.… I think it's going to be very hard to win this actual bottle,” he tells CTV News Vancouver.

“Multiple people will pay, absolutely, seeing the value in something like this. When you think about it, it's actually a very fair price for how much time has elapsed since the creation of this whisky. You're talking about 80 years and only charging $140,000,” he tells CTV News Vancouver.

“I definitely see this being at least in the seven-figure range pretty soon … I think it's going to become the value of a house and maybe, potentially more than that.”

Gana says getting two bottles to the city is a coup, and speaks to Vancouver being recognized as a market where there’s a thirst for these kinds of high-end products.

To those questioning why anyone would pay so much money for scotch, Gana says bottles like this should be understood as luxury collectibles – similar to Rolex watches, fine art, or high-end cars.

“Whiskey is not a drink. It is a collectible, it is absolutely in the collectibles market. It is completely a commodity 100 per cent, through and through,” he said, adding regardless of who buys it, “there's probably 99 per cent chance or they won't drink it.”

Gana, however, is one of the few people who has had the chance to actually taste it.

“I can tell you that somehow they managed to capture pure magic at 80 years of age,” he says.

“If you could describe heaven in a glass, it would legitimately be this.”