Rare single-malt Macallan whisky up for grabs for $228,000 at Vancouver draw

For a select few, Vancouver is recession-proof. So much so that the city was selected as the only market in Canada to offer for sale a rare, 81-year-old bottle of single-malt whisky. The price: $228,000.

Plus 15 per cent tax, and a 10-cent bottle deposit, of course.

There are only 288 bottles of The Macallan-The Reach whisky in the world. The 41.6 proof Scotch single malt is a “war-whisky,” distilled in 1940, and left to slumber in a single sherry-seasoned oak cask through the Second World War, the summer of love, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, Brexit and a global pandemic.

The liquor is presented in a mouth-blown decanter, and held in a bronze sculpture of three hands.

“We have the market for it,” said Adele Shaw, a manager with the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch. “There is already huge buzz.”