Gordon & MacPhail’s 85-Year-Old Glenlivet in Jeanne Gang’s Artistry in Oak Decanter, Heads to Christie’s New York

A Scotch whisky maker is in line to get more than £15m from a single cask of what is believed to be the oldest single malt yet bottled.Gordon & MacPhail has produced 125 bottles from the Glenlivet Distillery spirit laid down to mature in 1940. Jeanne Gang, an American architect, has designed a unique decanter for the whisky, with each one carrying a suggested price tag of £125,000.

In the winter of 1940, with the second world war cutting Scotland’s barley supply to a trickle, John and George Urquhart filled a single cask at Glenlivet. Cask 336 was a gamble against time: no one had ever intended to mature a whisky for more than eight decades.

Eighty-five years later that gamble has yielded what is now the oldest single-malt Scotch ever bottled. Gordon & MacPhail, still family-owned in its fourth generation, has drawn just 125 decanters from the cask, each filled with spirit still remarkably robust at 43.7 % ABV.

“One of the greatest challenges was that this had never been done before,” says Stephen Rankin, Gordon & MacPhail’s director of prestige and great-grandson of the founder. “Every year that goes by is a year into the unknown. We have to appreciate we’re always dealing with Mother Nature, patience and trust are key.”

A decanter by Jeanne Gang

For the release, the company turned to Jeanne Gang, the Chicago-based architect renowned for weaving natural forms into urban landmarks.

“I was excited to learn about everything involved in whisky’s creation and to design a decanter that could manifest that relationship between nature, time and craft,” Gang notes.

Her design, titled “Artistry in Oak,” suspends a hand-blown glass vessel inside four patinated-bronze branches, a form that recalls both the oak that cradled the whisky for eight-and-a-half decades and a tree slowly encasing a piece of amber.

“Standing tall and strong, the bronze entwines the vessel, revealing the amber colour of the whisky within,” she says. “Together, the elements depend on and complement each other in a reciprocal dance whose form, like the whisky it holds, is a product of both natural growth and the nature of its materiality.”

An auction lot for collectors and for forests

Decanter No 1 will be offered by Christie’s New York in an online sale running 7 – 21 November 2025. Proceeds (minus costs) will benefit American Forests, the US conservation charity working to restore oak-dominated habitats, a natural link to the casks that shape Scotch whisky.

The auction lot includes:

• the first numbered decanter of the 85-year-old Glenlivet,
• a personalised tasting with either Rankin or fellow fourth-generation family member Richard Urquhart,
• a framed sketch of an oak tree by Gang that informed the design,
• and the original cask-end of Cask 336 mounted in a bespoke frame.

“Partnering with Gordon & MacPhail for Artistry in Oak is a moment of pride for Christie’s,” says Adam Bilbey, the auction house’s global head of wine & spirits. “This unveiling is a celebration of time, tradition and craftsmanship.”

Cask 336 began life seasoned with mature sherry before being refilled with new-make Glenlivet spirit on 3 February 1940. Eight-and-a-half decades of quiet interaction between oak, spirit and the cool air of Gordon & MacPhail’s Elgin warehouses have yielded a whisky with aromas of soft aged leather, apricot compote, cinnamon and beeswax polish, lifted by a trace of smoke. The palate opens with black pepper, dried tobacco and Seville orange peel, deepening into Morello cherry, plum and subtle oak, finishing full-bodied with lingering herbal notes.

Rankin calls it “a living piece of history,, remarkable not only for its age but for the vibrancy that remains in the glass.”

Provenance, Patience and a Price Tag

Priced at £125,000 per decanter, the release surpasses The Macallan’s 84-year-old Time: Space as the longest-matured Scotch ever bottled. For collectors of both whisky and design, it is as much an objet d’art as a rare spirit.

“The quality of the whisky had to be manifest in the design,” Gang reflects. “Bronze evolves slowly and beautifully over time, just as whisky deepens in colour and character over the years.”