Yes, we’re sure you were expecting us to write about some Irish whiskey, what with today’s date. But we’re not quite that tediously predictable.

Yet.

Instead, a story straight from the auctioneer’s hammer: a bottle of Glenfiddich’s Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve sold at auction on Friday for a whopping $94,000 (a little under £60,000). It may be a 55-year-old single malt of rather arresting hue, but that’s quite a sum to hand over. Hopefully the buyer’s a fan!

There’s a nice little yarn to be spun about the provenance of this particular whisky. Janet Sheed Roberts is not only the granddaughter of the distillery’s founder (William Grant, who set up his distillery at Glenfiddich just fifteen years before Mrs. Roberts was born), but also the oldest living Scot (and seventh-oldest Briton). She shares a birthday with one of the Cask Tales team, but her arrival preceded his by 89 years. Commemorative editions have celebrated her birthday before – one of Kininvie’s few single malt releases was on the occasion of her 107^th birthday. The JSR Reserve was distilled when she was a mere 54, and eleven bottles are being released one by one in celebration of her 110^th birthday in 2011. The two previous releases sold for £46,850 and £44,000 respectively: who knows how much the later releases could fetch?

17 Mar This entry was written by Josh and published on March 17, 2012 at 21.28. It’s filed under Speciality whisky and tagged 55 year old, glenfiddich, janet sheed roberts reserve, rare whisky, scotch whisky, single malt, whisky, william grant. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.