Whose round is it? Hopefully not ours if any of these drinks are going on the tab. Whether it’s The Macallan whisky, whose Scottish single malts regularly smash records at auction, or ridiculously expensive vodkas encased in diamond-encrusted bottles, it’s clear some drinks are reserved for those with bottomless bank accounts. Here, we look at the most expensive drinks ever sold.  

What would you do if you found a stash of 189-year-old Scotch whisky in your cellar? That’s exactly what happened in 2022, when 24 bottles were found hidden away in a 13th-century Scottish castle. They were believed to date back to 1833. In November 2023, all 24 lots were sold at auction by Whisky Auctioneer, with final bidding prices ranging from £14,000 ($17,700) to £19,500 ($24,600) per bottle. If sold together, that price would have come to a staggering £385,500 ($487,300). 

The buyer had one hell of a night out when he added this 30-litre beast to his bill. It was sold for a whopping £125,000, around £172,100 ($217,500) in today’s value, at a nightclub in Liverpool, England, in March 2012. The Armand de Brignac Midas was then the largest – and priciest – bottle of Champagne available, and financier Alex Hope was the proud recipient of what was reported as the world’s most expensive bar bill of around £200,000 at the time; that's around £275,400 ($348,000) today. The champers, known as Ace of Spades and owned by rapper Jay-Z, required two waiters to bring it to the table. 

One way to rack up the value is to pour one of the rarest and most revered single malt whiskies into the most exquisitely crafted, limited-edition crystal decanters.  The collaboration has broken several auction records and raised some serious cash. This bottle, a 50-year-old single malt whisky, achieved £144,000, which is £179,800 ($227,200) adjusted for inflation, at Christie’s London in late 2018, surpassing the high estimate of £85,000 (£106,100/$134,100 in today's value). 

A six-litre bottle of the 1947 vintage of Château Cheval Blanc broke records at Christie’s in Geneva in 2010, selling for an incredible CHF 230,000, equating to around CHF 241,800 ($267,800/£211,900) in today’s value. It's considered among the finest wines of all time, fermented from the yields of a hot post-war summer harvested at the clay-rich vineyards in Saint-Emilion, France. Renowned wine critic Robert Parker described the Cabernet Franc and Merlot blend as having a "huge nose of fruitcake, chocolate, leather, coffee and Asian spices". 

A rare appearance on the list from a whisky not produced by The Macallan, this bottle is one of only 24 from Springbank Distillery’s 1919 vintage, hence the high price achieved at auction. The distillery in Campbeltown, Scotland, was established in 1828 on the set of a previously illicit still and remains in the same family. The rare bottle, once the world’s most expensive, reached £183,800 at Christie’s London in late 2021. Adjusted for inflation today, it would work out around £217,900 ($275,300).

Usually auction houses’ estimates are bang on the money, but not this time when a bottle of 1869 Château Lafite-Rothschild went for HK$1.8 million – roughly 28 times the estimate – at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in late 2010. In today’s value, that works out to HK$257.2 million ($328,500/£260,000). At that time, it was by far the most expensive 750ml bottle of wine ever sold at auction. The vintage is particularly prized because it was the first produced after Baron James Rothschild bought the winery in the Medoc wine region of Bordeaux the previous year. 

Jay-Z knows how to throw a party. At his after-show party at Hakkasan at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in late 2013, he forked out $275,000, which is $366,300 (£289,900) adjusted for inflation, on an Armand de Brignac 30-litre midas of rosé. Known for its large bottles of Champagne, the rosé was the equivalent to 40 standard bottles of wine and more than four-feet (1.2m) high. 

Launched in 2002, there are only a dozen bottles of The Dalmore 62, and their value keeps increasing. Aged for 62 years in sherry casks dating back to 1868, a bottle sold at Singapore’s Changi Airport in 2011 for £125,000 (£177,000/$223,600 when adjusted for inflation), which was five times the price reached at auction nine years earlier. In May 2020, it surpassed that again – with one bottle selling for £266,200, at Sotheby’s London. In today’s value, that equals around £323,800 ($409,000). 

Scottish distillery The Macallan and French crystal maker Lalique collaborated to make this stunning bottle of Scotch whisky. The decanter sold for $460,000, which is $654,600 (£518,100) adjusted for inflation, at Sotheby’s New York in 2010, setting a record for the most expensive whisky sold at auction. It’s since been surpassed by other bottles and sets from the collaboration.

This bottle of Romanée-Conti Grand Cru set the world record for the priciest single bottle of wine when it sold for $558,000, around $689,600 (£545,800) in today's value, at Sotheby’s New York in 2018. Another fetched a little less and, in total, the auction of rare wines from revered Burgundian estate Domaine de la Romanée-Conti raised $7.3m ($9.1m/£7.1m taking inflation into account). This was a whopping five times more than the estimate set by the auction house. This bottle is particularly valuable as only 600 are believed to have been produced in 1945, before the vines were torn out and replanted. 

Legendary California winery Screaming Eagle was awarded a near-perfect 99 points by famous wine critic Robert Parker for its first vintage, in 1992. In 2008, a lot of six magnum bottles of its Cabernet Sauvignon from that first year, sold for $500,000, equating to over $720,700 (£570,400) in today's money. They were sold to Shanghai billionaire David Li at a charity auction in Napa Valley. The wine is made in small quantities at the winery in Napa, and only 175 cases of the 1992 vintage were produced. 

The Yamazaki 55 Year Old is considered by many to be one of the finest whiskies from Japan, produced by its oldest commercial distillery, founded in 1923. It’s certainly among the rarest and oldest, which helps to explain the record-breaking HK$6.2 million this gold-dusted bottle fetched at Bonhams Fine & Rare Wine and Whisky Sale in Hong Kong in August 2020. That works out at HK$6.4 million ($817,500/£647,200) based on today's value. One of 150 bottles released, it smashed its pre-sale estimate by more than 10 times. 

The Six Pillars collection is another treasure yielded from The Macallan’s collaboration with Lalique. It’s made up of six whiskies aged 50-65 years, each encased in a beautiful bottle from the renowned French crystal maker. The full set, displayed in a walnut cabinet, went for $816,000 – that's $990,000 (£783,900) today – at auction in 2019, while another was sold in 2022 to a private collector by luxury retailer Le Clos at Dubai Airport, just surpassing the previous record.

This bottle crafted by French crystal maker Lalique contains six litres of some of the world’s best and most complex whisky, which is aged for 25-75 years in sherry casks. It sold for HK$4.9 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in 2014, which is HK$8.4 million ($1.1m/£852,400) adjusted for inflation. The sale broke the previous record – set in 2010 by a bottle from the same collaboration – to become, for a time, the most expensive whisky sold at auction. 

The Macallan’s case 263 is responsible for the majority of the brown stuff that makes this list. The ex-sherry cask was filled at the Scottish distillery in 1926 to be used in a blend, although was somehow forgotten and remained untouched for six decades. However, that turned out to be a blessing as this bottle – one of a dozen designed by pop artist Sir Peter Blake – reached a staggering sum of almost HK$8 million (around HK$8.7m/$1.1m/£883,000 today) at Bonhams, Hong Kong in May 2018. The record was only beaten later by other bottles from the same vintage. 

A standard 750ml bottle of this Napa Valley Cabernet costs around $195 (£155), but this bottle – a hangover inducing six litres – was one of a kind, hence the hefty price tag. It went for a cool $1 million in November 2021 at a New Orleans auction for the charity foundation run by celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse (pictured). That's around $1.15m (£910,000) today. 

Rare, collectable whiskies often surpass expectations when they come up for sale. When The Macallan Red Collection went under the hammer at Sotheby’s London in late 2020, the auction house gave a broad estimate, and it came very close to the top figure, selling for £756,400 (£920,000/$1.16m, taking inflation into account). There are only two sets of the whiskies, which tell the story of the legendary Scottish distillery and include the two oldest vintages ever released. 

One of the few whiskies on this list not distilled by The Macallan, The Dalmore Decades No.6 Collection is a selection of six releases – from 1951, 1967, 1979, 1980, 1995 and 2000 (each year representing a key moment in The Dalmore’s history). It was curated by master distiller Richard Paterson and sold in October 2021, with the singular Scotch achieving HK$8.75 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong. That comes in at around HK$9 million ($1.2m/£920,000) after inflation.  

This cask of The Macallan single malt lay in the distiller's warehouse after the owner, who bought it in 1988, apparently forgot about it. It was originally purchased for around £5,000 – and sold for £915,000 in April 2022 (£994,300/$1.3m after inflation), earning the owner a massive profit. Enough to fill around 534 standard whisky bottles, it was put up for sale after the distillery reminded the owner of its existence. 

The world’s largest bottle of whisky went up for auction in May 2022 – but it isn’t actually the most expensive bottle ever sold, going under the hammer at a mere £1.1 million (£1.2m/$1.5m in today’s value). A lofty 5ft 11in (1.8m), it does officially hold the Guinness World Record for the biggest bottle, though, containing 311 litres of a 1989 The Macallan single malt. 

In November 2020, this set of Japanese whiskies set a new record when it went for a staggering HK$11.89 million, equating to HK$12.3 million ($1.6m/£1.25m) in today’s value. The auction, held at Bonhams in Hong Kong, positioned Hanyu Distillery’s Full Card Series as the most expensive set of Japanese whisky ever sold. The collection features 54 bottles, each representing a playing card, while the contents are drawn from casks conserved before the distillery closed in 2000, with the rare bottles released between 2005-14.

In November 2018, one of few remaining bottles of The Macallan’s cask 263, went for £1.2m at Christie’s auction house in London. If sold at the same price today, that would equate to £1.5 million ($1.9m). It broke the two previous records for the same vintage, matured in ex-sherry casks for six decades before being bottled in 1986. This bottle was hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon, whose design depicts the distillery’s Speyside estate, making it a complete one-off. 

The name translates as 'taste of diamonds', which gives some idea as to why these bubbles are so pricey. In fact, it’s believed this particular limited-edition bottle – priced at £1.2 million, or £1.6 million ($2m) in today’s value – was the world’s most expensive single bottle of Champagne when it was released in June 2013. Shammi Shinh, founder of London’s Prodiguer Brand, collaborated with British Nigerian luxury product designer Alexander Amosu on a bespoke bottle with a logo of 18-carat white gold and a 19-carat diamond. 

There's 'the good stuff' – and then there's a $2 million (£1.63m) bottle of Cognac. Containing arguably the world’s finest Cognac, distilled and aged for more than 100 years at Maison Dudognon in the Champagne region of France, this one-off bottle was produced by Ley .925 – which also released the world’s most expensive tequila. The platinum bottle is dipped in 24-carat yellow gold. 

In 2019, this whisky was estimated to sell for £350,000 but it actually ended up selling for more than four times that amount, reaching an impressive £1.5 million at an auction at Sotheby’s London. That’s around £1.8 million ($2.3m) in today’s value. It was one of 14 bottles with the Fine & Rare label, all containing 60-year-old single malt from the Scottish distillery’s coveted cask 263.

A further dozen bottles of single malt from the legendary cask 263 were given a boost with labels designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami, whose abstract featured a female figure admiring a bottle of whisky. It was rumoured that one of these was destroyed in an earthquake in Japan, which pushed the value up even more – one sold for £848,800 (around £1m/$1.3m, taking inflation into account) at Bonhams in Edinburgh in October 2018. Surpassing even that, another sold in November 2023 at Sotheby's in London for almost £2.2 million ($2.7m).

Inspired by the Seven Wonders of Ireland, this Irish whiskey made history in January 2024 when one of its bottles sold for a hefty price of $2.8 million (£2.2m). Taking the crown for the most expensive whiskey (or whisky) to ever be sold, this is part of Craft Irish Whiskey Co.’s Emerald Isle Collection. There are only seven bottles in the world, with American collector Mike Daley now the latest lucky owner of the striking spirit. The set comes complete with a bespoke, handcrafted Celtic egg and a wristwatch, created by luxury jeweller Fabergé. 

Now here's a bottle you won't want to throw in with the rest of the recycling. Made using 4.4lb (2kg) of platinum and embellished with 4,100 pristine white diamonds, it’s perhaps no surprise that Tequila Ley .925’s Ley Diamante is the world’s priciest agave spirit. It’s reportedly a whopping $3.5 million (£2.8m). The contents are rather premium too – the tequila is Premium Extra Añejo, made in Mexico with top-quality agave and matured in barrels for seven years. 

You really do need to be a millionaire to be able to splash out on this $3.75 million (£2.97m) bottle of vodka. Billionaire Vodka, by designer and self-described 'king of luxury' Leon Verres, is sold as a methuselah (six-litre bottle). It’s made with spring water from the grounds of an English castle, then triple distilled through ice, Nordic birch charcoal, and crushed diamonds and gems. Much of the price, though, is down to the platinum and rhodium bottle, encrusted with diamonds and with a solid gold label. 

The very blingy bottle of Isabella’s Islay certainly has the wow-factor and the price to go with it – a cool $6.4 million (£5m) for 750ml. The single malt, from the Scottish island of Islay, is inside a decanter of fine English crystal encrusted with around 8,500 diamonds. The price was last verified in 2016, and it certainly isn’t widely on sale (just in case you were planning to rush out and buy a bottle on a whim). 

Each bottle of Royal Dragon Vodka is filled with clear, small-batch spirit. Oh, and a dragon. The Dutch-owned company took things up a few notches (and a few zeros) by releasing The Eye of the Dragon vodka in 2017. Valued at $5.5 million – around $6.9 million (£5.5m) in today’s value – it was one of the most expensive bottles of vodka. The contents are rare, too, made in a century-old copper pot still and distilled five times. The bottle, which is a six-litre beast sporting a yellow diamond, thousands of smaller diamonds and 18-carat gold, is even rarer. 

Forget the complimentary shots you get at Italian restaurants. This limoncello, made with aromatic lemon peels from the Amalfi coast, is considered the finest in the world, and is also the most expensive spirit ever sold (that we know of). The bottle, designed by the late Stuart Hughes of Liverpool, England, boasts three 13-carat diamonds and one giant 18.5-carat diamond. An anonymous Italian client commissioned two bottles – they kept one and the other is on sale for a cool £27 million ($34m).  

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Last updated by Lottie Woodrow.