Glenmorangie 50 Year Old debuts at £25,800 a bottle
The Highland distillery's oldest release yet arrives in 149 numbered bottles, each set inside a porcelain vessel hand-thrown by ceramicist Peter Pincus.
Glenmorangie 50 Year Old is now the Highland distillery's oldest whisky ever, bottled in just 149 numbered vessels and priced at £25,800 each.
The single malt comes from Glenmorangie's distillery in Tain, on Scotland's north-east coast, and carries the furthest age statement in the brand's history. It launched on September 24, 2026, bottled at cask strength, 47.5% ABV, with no chill-filtration or added colour.
Each bottle sits inside a bespoke porcelain vessel made by American ceramicist Peter Pincus, working with his partner Laurie Pincus. The pair developed around 50 custom colour pigments to translate the whisky's aroma and flavour into glaze, a technique neither had used before. Building all 149 vessels took their studio more than three years.
It's been an honour collaborating with Peter Pincus to present this Glenmorangie in such an extraordinary way.
Glenmorangie 50 Year Old, by the numbers
Glenmorangie 50 Year Old sells for £25,800 a bottle, roughly $34,700 or €30,000 at current exchange rates. It reaches buyers through Moët Hennessy's Private Client channel, Glenmorangie's own visitor centre in Tain, and a short list of retailers worldwide. Only 149 numbered bottles exist.
Tasting notes list baked oranges, sultanas, nutmeg and a herbal top note on the nose. The palate turns peppery, with toffee, stewed Assam tea leaves, birch tar, clove and oak tannins through a long finish.
"It's been an honour collaborating with Peter Pincus to present this Glenmorangie in such an extraordinary way," said Dr Bill Lumsden, Glenmorangie's director of distilling.
Three decades under one distiller
Lumsden joined Glenmorangie in 1995 and has overseen the last three decades of this liquid's maturation in bourbon and sherry casks. Part of it was distilled from among the final batches of barley malted on the distillery's own floor maltings before they closed in 1977, which gives the whisky faint smoke rare in Glenmorangie's usual style.
The release lands in a category where age statements keep climbing: elsewhere in the Highlands, Loch Lomond bottled its oldest peated malt at 31 years last month, and LVMH stablemate Macallan has drawn record interest for pre-war casks ahead of a 1926 bottle's sale at Sotheby's. At £25,800, the 50 Year Old undercuts those six-figure lots while still setting a Glenmorangie house record.
Glenmorangie has not said how many of the 149 bottles remain unsold.
