DramMaster Daily Whisky News — 24 September 2026
Murray
By Murray
One bottle costs £25,800. Another costs £64 and tells you exactly what's inside it. Today's whisky news also takes in a twice-yearly bourbon, a Japanese auction lot and an Edinburgh tour you can follow in more languages than most whisky labels offer.
Glenmorangie bottles a 50-year-old from its floor-malted era
Glenmorangie has released its oldest bottling yet: a 50-year-old Highland single malt, limited to 149 numbered bottles at £25,800 each. It was distilled in the mid-1970s, while the distillery still malted some of its own barley on site. Those floor maltings closed in 1977. This is whisky from an operation the current visitor can't walk into.
According to The Whiskey Wash, the spirit matured in bourbon hogsheads and first-fill oloroso sherry butts before Dr Bill Lumsden selected a parcel in 1999. It was then married in a single refill hogshead for further ageing. That last cask matters: a half-century in wood needn't mean half a century in the same wood. The composition and the long finishing period are more useful information than the porcelain vessel the bottles come in. The whisky is being offered through Moët Hennessy's private client team, the Tain visitor centre and selected retailers, rather than as a normal shelf release.
Murray's take: £25,800 buys access to a very particular piece of Glenmorangie's past. The old floor-malted barley and the 1999 marriage are the interesting parts. The porcelain is somebody else's concern. Nobody needs this bottle to understand the distillery, but its cask history is worth reading.
Compass Box tells you what its ten-year-old contains
Compass Box's new This is a 10-Year-Old Whisky is a blended malt composed of three single malts, all exactly ten years old. Clynelish contributes 66.5%, peated Ardnamurchan 20.2%, and unpeated Ardnamurchan 13.3%. All three components came from first-fill bourbon casks. The whisky is bottled at 50.5% ABV; 3,610 numbered bottles are due through The Whisky Exchange from 26 September at a recommended £64.
The release marks ten years since Compass Box began campaigning for more freedom to disclose the ages and proportions of components in Scotch blends. Under the age-statement rule, the age on a blend's label refers to its youngest component. That doesn't stop a maker explaining the recipe, but it does limit how older component ages can be presented to buyers. Here, every component is the same age, and the recipe is unusually plain to read. Clynelish is a Diageo-owned malt; its inclusion here is a recipe fact, not a verdict on the distillery.
Murray's take: Put the romance aside and look at the proportions. Two Ardnamurchan styles account for a third of the blend, with Clynelish supplying the rest. At £64, that is the kind of information you can use before buying. Whether you like the glass is a separate question.
Willett gives its pot-still bourbon a cask-strength edition
Willett Pot Still Reserve Cask Strength has arrived as a wheated Kentucky straight bourbon. Willett says it will release the expression at the spring and autumn equinoxes rather than keeping one fixed bottling proof throughout the year. The final proof will vary by release and will be printed on the bottle. No honest comparison with another cask-strength Willett can use a proof figure that has not yet been specified for the bottle in hand.
The reported mash bill is 65% corn, 20% wheat and 15% barley; the whiskey enters the barrel at 115 proof. Those are production details, not the strength at which a buyer will pour it. The familiar pot-still-shaped decanter returns. Its design copies a Willett pot still built by Vendome Copper and Brass, so the bottle has always attracted attention even from people who have never tried the bourbon. The Whiskey Wash reports national availability at $67 (£50); check the actual shelf price in your market.
Murray's take: A changing proof is more interesting than a new box for a familiar bottle. Read the number printed on yours and add water if it needs it. The decanter can stay on the shelf while you judge the whiskey in the glass.
Karuizawa prototype sells for $625,000 in New York
A bottle of Karuizawa 1960 Cask #5627 sold for $625,000 at Sotheby's Whisky & Whiskey auction in New York on 18 September. Known as The Prototype, it was one of two bottles said to have been drawn directly from the cask and hand-bottled by Karuizawa's final master distiller, Osami Uchibori, before the commercial release. Sotheby's pre-sale estimate for the lot was $400,000 to $600,000.
The whisky auction totalled $2.9 million, which Sotheby's described as the highest total for a spirits auction held in New York City. It was part of the Nightcap wine and spirits festival; all five of the festival's sales together brought in $14.3 million. Do not mistake that larger festival figure for whisky sales alone. Reported hammer-and-premium sale prices include the buyer's premium, whereas the pre-sale estimates do not. That difference matters when judging how far above estimate a bottle went.
Murray's take: This is a rare bottle with a specific history, not a useful price signal for everyday Japanese whisky. The two directly drawn prototypes explain much more of the number than the word "1960" on its own. If you're buying to drink, this auction tells you almost nothing about what to open tonight.
Edinburgh whisky attraction adds more ways to follow a tour
The Scotch Whisky Experience on Edinburgh's Royal Mile now offers tours in 21 spoken languages, up from six when it opened in 1988. Vietnamese is the newest addition. According to figures supplied by the attraction, more than 70% of its visitors come from outside the UK; US visitors make up 24% of the total, while France accounts for 7%. The venue says demand has also risen for Czech, Hindi and two variants of Portuguese.
Accessibility here goes beyond translated audio. The attraction worked with Deaf Action on digital British Sign Language and American Sign Language guides and has also added International Sign. Visitors use handheld devices provided on site, with the language guides included at no additional charge. There is no need to bring a phone or buy an add-on to follow the explanation. That matters in a subject full of specialist terms: a tasting is less useful if half the tour has passed you by before the first glass arrives.
Murray's take: Making the tour understandable is a better investment than another display case. Twenty-one languages won't change how a whisky tastes. They will help more people understand what they're tasting, which is the point of a whisky tour.
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