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Bloomberg

Rare whisky is supposed to be in decline.
An extensive industry analysis published recently by financial advisory firm Noble reveals sales of top-shelf Scotch fell 24 per cent by volume and 34 per cent by value from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2024.
Yet the ongoing parade of five-figure bottles hardly seems to be slowing. This month alone has seen the release of the oldest Irish single malt. That was followed a week later by The Glen Grant 65 Year Old, one of the costliest expressions to come out of the legendary Speyside still house.
Now its next-door neighbour, The Glenrothes, is following suit with “The 51” – the oldest and rarest single malt in its 146-year history.

Just 100 bottles will be available worldwide priced at £37,000 (US$48,000) each. A stratospheric sum on its face, and yet a figure that has become exceedingly common in the perpetual one-upmanship of rare whiskies.
“One cask was delicate and ethereal in character, and the other was richer and sweeter,” master whisky maker Laura Rampling said about the stock selected for the final vatting.
“Combined, they tell the story of how our delicate new make spirit ages with a counter-intuitive robustness, able to retain and, indeed, intensify in elegance over decades of maturation without becoming overpowered by the wood of the cask.”
Naturally, this effusive, flowery sort of language is going to stem from the maker herself – more and more they are the only ones who taste it. In high-end spirits, collecting rarely equals enjoying.
The Glenrothes’ major gimmick – that each numbered bottle comes fully encased in a concrete-looking column of Jesmonite (a gypsum-resin composite) – might be its salvation.
We wanted to find a way for each bottle to be radically exclusive to its owner
Laura Rampling, The Glenrothes’ master whisky maker
The only way to access, or even see, the mahogany-coloured prize at its core is by smashing through the shell with a purpose-built flathead hammer included in the packaging.
Why does this matter? In one word: resale.
Extravagant design has been a hallmark of high-end bottlings for years. It is the most reliable way to attract the attention of collectors and investors, who are often intrigued by elaborate presentation, perhaps more so than by what exists within all that fancy glass.
By forcing collectors to destroy the packaging, the 51 uses artistic novelty to stifle a secondary market rather than encourage it.

“This is a whisky that’s effectively impossible to resell – at least at public auction,” Jonny Fowle, global head of whisky for Sotheby’s, says over text message.
Each Jesmonite shell may have a plaque and be numbered out of 100, but “If the outer casing is intact then you can’t confirm what is inside it. Once the casing has been smashed, then the product is intrinsically damaged. It’s like trying to sell a bottle without the presentation case.”
And in the world of high-end collectibles such as watches and whisky – and even lower-end ones like action figures – packaging is all-important. Along with knowing that what you are buying is legit, of course.

If you do not break the 51’s casing, you have got a rather dull, uninspiring canister on your shelf that will be more difficult to sell later.
But those who do get hammered with their £37,000 bottle are invited to return the shattered shards of Jesmonite to the distillery and let a kintsugi artist reassemble the column, filling the cracks with gold in accordance with the traditional Japanese practice.
“We wanted to find a way for each bottle to be radically exclusive to its owner,” said Rampling of the bespoke, interactive art piece that gets returned. “This act of destruction is intensely personal – each column will break in its own unique way.”
Collectors could always break the column, receive the art piece and keep the actual bottle unopened, but with the effect on resale to be determined, it is a gamble. And all very clever.
We may have collectively lost sight of the base purpose of producing incredible whiskies
Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s global head of whisky
The Glenrothes have forcibly designed the 51 for appreciation rather than speculation, which is great news for the future of the category.
Fowle, who oversees one of the whisky world’s most prominent secondary marketplaces, agrees. “It’s really good for us when people drink their whiskies,” he says.
“There used to be the added spice of consumer-introduced rarity through stock depletion. That has all but disappeared from the top end of the industry now.”
The shift can be traced back to a little more than a decade ago, when rare Scotch began to soar as a luxury investment asset.

By 2023 a Knight Frank luxury investment index showed that over a 10-year period, whisky comfortably crushed all popular alternatives including art, vintage cars, watches and diamonds. But unlike the rest, enjoyment of whisky requires depletion.
“These days, when someone opens these bottles everyone seems shocked – including the distilleries,” Fowle says. “This suggests to me that we may have collectively lost sight of the base purpose of producing incredible whiskies.”
The recent levelling off of secondary sales might not be a correction, then, so much as an inevitable realignment of vision. If speculators look to other assets, whisky prices will become more accurately tethered to actual demand.
Deep-pocketed connoisseurs, meanwhile, have an opportunity to buy the dip. And liquid can flow back into the drams of folks who want to drink their Scotch rather than stare at it as art on the shelf.


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Food and Drinks

The US$48,000 single malt whisky from Scotch distiller that you’ll have to smash open

The Glenrothes The 51 comes with a flathead hammer for buyers to smash the outer packaging with. Photo: The Glenrothes

The 51 is The Glenrothes’ oldest, rarest whisky. Selling for US$48,000 a bottle, it comes encased in stone you’ll need to hammer to open it, a gimmick that encourages buyers to drink the contents rather than hold on to the bottle to resell. Photo: The Glenrothes

The Glen Grant 65 Year Old is one of the most expensive whiskies the Speyside distiller has ever produced. It launches amid a flurry of high-end Scotch single malt releases. Photo: Campari Group

Smashing the outer casing of The 51 is necessary to confirm what’s inside, but also leaves the product intrinsically damaged and harder to resell. Photo: The Glenrothes

Collectors of high-end whisky are intrigued by elaborately designed packaging, perhaps more so than what’s actually in the bottle. Photo: Shutterstock

Sotheby’s global head of whisky Jonny Fowle says buyers enjoying the whisky they buy is good for the market. Photo: Getty Images for Sotheby’s

Praised by Homer in ancient Greece, can the world’s oldest recorded wine make a comeback?

Bottles of Commandaria wine at the Karsera Winery in Dhoros, Cyprus. Photo: AP

Commandaria wine at a museum dedicated to the tipple in Zoopigi, Cyprus. A favourite of ancient Greek writer Homer nearly 3,000 years ago, the wine is no longer widely known around the world. Photo: AP

Bottles of Commandaria wine on a table at the Karsera Winery in the village of Dhoros, in Cyprus. The wine is said to have been served to royalty for centuries. Photo: AP

Zoopigi village community leader Christakis Nikolaou prunes a vine in his vineyard. Photo: AP

A vineyard outside Agios Mamas in Cyprus’ Commandaria wine region. The village is one of only 14 to produce the wine. Photo: AP

Commandaria wine bottles on a rack at Revecca Winery in Agios Mamas, Cyprus. Its wine won the top prize at the national wine competition in 2024. Photo: AP

A worker draws Commandaria wine from a barrel at Revecca Winery in Agios Mamas, Cyprus. Photo: AP

Philippos Karseras, manager of the Karsera Winery in Cyprus, is encouraged by an upswing in domestic consumption of Commandaria. Photo: AP

Reopened ‘ghost’ Scotch whisky distilleries offer tastes of past and future

Port Ellen distillery’s Gemini twin whiskies. Photo: Port Ellen

Port Ellen on the island of Islay in the Hebrides is one of two recently reopened “ghost” distilleries in Scotland that have released their first Scotch single malt whiskies in decades. Photo: Port Ellen

The Brora distillery in the far north of the Scottish Highlands had been closed for more than three decades when drinks giant Diageo reopened it in 2021. Photo: Victoria Burrows

Brora’s 44-Year-Old Untold Depths sells for £10,000 a bottle. Photo: Brora

A cask from 1979 in the warehouse at Port Ellen. Photo: Victoria Burrows

Outdoor worm tubs (pools of water in which spirit is converted from gas to liquid) at Brora. Many of the old buildings and equipment at the distillery dates back decades. Photo: Victoria Burrows

The sleek, modern still house at Port Ellen. Photo: Victoria Burrows

Distillery workers at Port Ellen distillery take multiple cuts from the spirit safe. Photo: Port Ellen

Port Ellen’s distillery manager, Alexander McDonald. Photo: Port Ellen

Aimée Morrison, Port Ellen’s master blender. Photo: courtesy of Port Ellen

Port Ellen’s Gemini twin whiskies are the oldest the distillery has released. Photo: Port Ellen

Your Hong Kong weekend drinks guide for March 20-22

The St. Regis Bar Jakarta’s Paulo Naranjo will work a guest shift at The St. Regis Bar Hong Kong, featuring this Lawyer’s Sour Deal cocktail. Photo: Handout

The St. Regis Bar Hong Kong will host St Regis Bar Jakarta’s Paulo Naranjo, bar and beverage manager of The St. Regis Bar Jakarta. Photo: Handout

Chris Hannah from New Orleans’ Jewel of the South will mix up cocktails at DarkSide for two nights this weekend. Photo: Handout

Interiors of Not 2 Sweet, which is throwing open its doors to members of Dara this weekend. Photo: Handout

‘Mysterious’ fish that’s famous in Fukuoka, and why it is sumo wrestlers’ food of choice

Fukuoka chef Kazutaka Hagiwara prepares longtooth grouper. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Ingredients for “chanko nabe” or sumo wrestler’s stew, including longtooth grouper, a fish Japanese call kue which is a speciality of the southern city of Fukuoka. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Kazutaka Hagiwara, chef de cuisine of sushi restaurant Tomozuna on the top floor of the Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk, gets to work on a longtooth grouper in its kitchen. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Hitoshi Hirokawa, executive director of Fukuoka’s Nagahama Fish Market, calls longtooth grouper “the most famous fish in Fukuoka”. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

The sharp teeth of the longtooth grouper make it difficult for sushi chefs to handle. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Dishes prepared using the flesh of the longtooth grouper fish, including sashimi (front). Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

A longtooth grouper at the seafood market in Fukuoka. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Longtooth grouper stew. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Amid a dip in the rare whisky market, The Glenrothes has made its exclusive The 51 single malt ‘effectively impossible to resell’


Amid a dip in the rare whisky market, The Glenrothes has made its exclusive The 51 single malt ‘effectively impossible to resell’.


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