What Whisky from a Million-Dollar Collection Actually Tastes Like

I can't afford a lot of the Scotches I write about. Not to disclose my income, but世界上最昂贵的威士忌酒瓶— which I covered in 2019 — sold for many times more than it.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy covering the whiskey market. It's interesting to seehow rapidly investment has increased和which brands are the most coveted。但是有时，这就像当我负担不起去电影院时掩盖好莱坞一样：我错过了基本的经历。（这并不意味着每个人is drinking their million-dollar bottlesof whiskey!)

But occasionally, I'm offered the chance to try something I wouldn't otherwise splurge on… like $1,000 sips of Scotch.

The Dalmore Decades 5 Piece Collection retails for $275,000 for a five-bottle set. To say that's outside my whiskey budget is an understatement. It's outside my budget for anything beyond a house. But Scotch collectors are theoretically getting something for their money: pedigree and scarcity.

This past October, the Highland distillery scoredone of the priciest Scotch auctions ever当六瓶版本的套装（达莫6号系列）以110万美元的价格售出时。5件系列包含2000、1995、1980、1979和1967的瓶装（因此是“数十年”的名称），但第六名系列也被扔进了1951年的年份。

你可以看看5块(其中只有15 have been made) as a chance to get one bottle away from the million-dollar set at an $825,000 discount. I got a step below that: To promote the 5 Piece Collection, The Dalmore was offering an extremely limited number of tasting sets to the press. I accepted their offer; it may be the closest I'll ever come to understanding what a million-dollar collection of Scotch tastes like.

The free sampling set I received contained five tiny vials, each holding about 15 milliliters of Scotch — a third of a shot. Even at that miniscule amount, a bit of quick math would put the value of my set at an absurd $5,500.

当然，苏格兰人的价值是不起作用的。仅仅因为第六套件的售价比5件套装高出825,000美元，并不一定意味着1951年的额外的老式瓶子仅以$ 825,000的价格出售。所出售的一部分是独一无二的系列。那么，我可以将我的一个小瓶换成MacBook吗？当我将第一个小瓶倒入玻璃杯中时，我没有考虑过。

That's the paradox: In many ways, price punctuates the experience, but at the same time, thinking about the cost seems as sensible as throwing ten Benjamins between bread and eating a literal cash sandwich. Shouldn't the Scotch itself remain the focal point, even if it feels like an aside to the cost?

And so, maybe unsurprisingly, I found my first taste – the 2000 – rather unfulfilling. (Full disclosure, though I cover Scotch, I am not a Scotch tasting expert. Beer is my area of expertise; with whiskey, I'm a relative novice. If you are, too, read on with confidence that we are in similar shoes.)

“这是我的拿手好戏,“我告诉克雷格•布里杰head of advocacy for The Dalmore, who led my guided tasting. And it was. This Scotch from the year 2000 had spent all 20 years of its life (all five vintages were bottled in 2020) in a Matusalem Oloroso sherry butt, and I tend to like sherry-aged whiskies. But "up my alley" implies familiarity; at this price point, I was a bit disappointed to not be wowed.

Moving on, the 1995 was matured in ex-Bourbon casks and finished in Tintilla de Rota port pipes. "It's a testament to the rigor with which we seek out interesting casks that are going to yield layers to the whiskey and have a story to tell," Bridger told me. I detected more candied notes, but didn't quite taste a story. At this point I was starting to wonder if I'd even be able to comprehend what a thousand dollars worth of a liquid tastes like.

"The pricing conversation at this level is always a little bit difficult to define exactly because, frankly, we're getting into a very exclusive world of rarity," Bridger explained. "You could have the same question about a luxury watch or a print from your favorite artists. The prices these things are commanding, for the average person who doesn't have the drive to acquire that, it seems astounding."

I once considered paying over $2,000 for an album by Guided by Voices, a band my friend Helen describes as the guys from theBuffy the Vampire Slayer Soundtrack。I was starting to understand what Craig was talking about.

Then, it happened. The 1980 really struck me. To my ignorant palette, it was easily the best of the bunch.

Whereas most Dalmore whiskies go from Bourbon casks into Matusalem sherry butts, this 40-year-old single malt was sent back into first-fill ex-Bourbon casks for five years before bottling. "I'm not sure what alchemy should take the credit for this, but a lot of people have shared with me that they particularly loved this one of the five," Bridger said.

“炼金术”既有趣又合适：我不能将我的手指放在我对1980年最喜欢的东西上。我将花束描述为“不可思议”，大约是含糊的品尝声。克雷格和我最终决定的是，我可能对rancio。For the first time, I felt like I was drinking something old, something with history. It was a liquid time machine and, as time travel is impossible, one could — on a limb — describe the flavor as priceless.

From there, the 1979 and 1967 were a bit of a blur. It wasn't intoxication — keep in mind, I'd yet to consume a full shot's worth of Scotch. Instead, the 1980 had piqued something in my brain: Suddenly, I was locked more into the experience than the drinks themselves.

"I'm here from the future to tell you, Mike, that the older you get, the harder it is to try whiskies that are older than you are," Bridger said before talking me through the 1967, distilled the same year that the current Dalmore stillhouse was built. He's right: I've worked withvwin德赢ac米兰食品和葡萄酒vwin德赢ac米兰for over seven years, and this is only the second time I can remember drinking a whisky older than my birth year. "All the technology in the world, and all the chemical engineering that we can put to this process now in the year 2021, there's no accounting — and there's no replacement — for what time can mold and craft on these whiskies," Bridger added.

"That one definitely tastes different than the other four," I commented, chuckling at my own naivety after trying the 53-year-old single malt that, unlike any previous Scotch in the collection, had its final maturation in a Mont-Redon Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine barrique. It opened slightly sweet, like a dessert wine, and yet still managed to end with a spicier finish than the rest of the group.

And that was it; my tasting was over. I went back and finished my final sips, but in the course of an hour, I had just downed a mere 75 milliliters of whisky with an approximate retail price of a hot tub. Had I been handed a bill, it would have been a tough pill to swallow.

But weeks later, as I listened back to my recording of our tasting, what stood out to me was the silence. My own silence as I tried to process these whiskies, to both be in the moment and be in the past. The sound of this introspection was empty time.

Only one set of The Dalmore Decades 5 Piece Collection is available for sale in the United States. "Number 14" is at Wally's Wine & Spirits in Santa Monica, California. The Dalmore admitted they didn't expect the set to sell quickly; though not explicitly stated, the display — its very presence — appeared to be part of the collection's reason for existence. The other 14 collections are spread out at "the finest retailers across the world."

I won't be rushing out to grab one. I really enjoyed the 1980 Dalmore. I wish I had more than the 15 milliliters allocated to me, and I would drink it again in a heartbeat. But would I pay $275,000 to get an entire bottle of it — along with four other bottles of Scotch I couldn't entirely wrap my head around? Well, no.

But I could see how someone else might.

您可以获得更多的钱，但是您无法获得更多的时间。而且，如果我有太多的钱，并且担心自己的时间有限的存在，那么我可以看到这次在瓶子里拥有的魅力。相反，我可以看到打开1980年的破解，并为我所有的朋友倒出一杯：“ f-k y you”，以达到时间和金钱的神圣性。

It's also very possible that — like watches, art, or Guided by Voices LPs — this Scotch may mature in value over the years and simply makes for a smart investment. Scotch can be drunk; records can be spun. But diehard collectors often leave both unopened. Thankfully, today, I am about $275,000 short of having to worry about any of this. Still, it's a fun thing to ponder over a cheaper glass of Scotch. And who knows: maybe I'll have different thoughts on the matter in another decade or so.