30-year-old Irish whiskey sells for record-breaking $2.8 million

(KTLA) – A rare bottle of whiskey — and all the luxury items that come with it — is now the most expensive ever sold.

The extremely rare bottle of The Emerald Isle was sold at auction to American whiskey collector Mike Daley for $2.8 million, beating out the previous record-setter by $100,000.

The 30-year-old single malt Irish whiskey is the “rarest triple-distilled single malt in existence,” according to the Craft Irish Whiskey Co., which produced only seven bottles and encased each in a designer box as unique and exorbitant as the spirit itself.

But Daley didn’t just buy the liquor. His bottle comes with a decanter, a bespoke Fabergé egg containing an actual emerald gem, a custom timepiece and a pair of Cohiba cigars, all contained within a custom walnut case.

The whiskey itself was aged for three decades in a “variety of casks,” a process that has given the liquor an “unrivalled intensity of flavour,” the makers say.

Daley is one of the world’s most prolific whiskey collectors, with several thousand bottles to his name, from the Americas to the British Isles.

While Scotch whisky often gets much of the attention from connoisseurs of the product, the Craft Irish Whiskey Co. says its mission is to restore Ireland’s reputation as one of the world’s distilling leaders.

“The rebirth of Irish whiskey is relatively new, so I feel like I’m getting in on the ground floor,” Daley said. “Luxury scotch, to me, is already a crowded type of market. But we’re only just starting to see luxury Irish make a name for itself. I guarantee you that in the years to come, it will get to where scotch is today.”

The previous title holder for the most expensive whiskey/whisky ever sold was a bottle of The Macallan 1926. The Scotch whisky sold at auction last November for $2.7 million.

Only 40 of those bottles were ever produced, including only 12 that featured labels designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami.