Metacask to auction off rare 1988 cask, worth millions, from The Macallan Distillery
Following its successful sale of a 1991 cask for over $2.3 million, Metacask is auctioning another rare whisky cask distilled at The Macallan Distillery. The cask is accompanied by 1/1 animated art -The Dragon, by renowned Italian artist Ruben Frosali
SWITZERLAND. February 9, 2023 – Metacask, the marketplace for high-quality spirits, announces the auction of one of the rarest Scotch whisky casks - a 35-year-old Butt, cask number #4178. Casks of this age, quality, and size are extraordinarily rare and the 1988 is complemented by the fact it is held at The Macallan distillery in Scotland, providing perfect provenance.
Metacask is debuting the highly coveted cask, which is valued at over $3 million dollars. Whilst this 35-year-old whisky can be bottled now, it could remain in the cask to hit the sought-after 50-year mark. This understated and delicate whisky has top notes of dried fruits and nuts with a faint cereal base. The pale amber liquid starts lightly sweet, with considerable spice in the long, and a warming finish. The last regauge puts the alcohol by volume (ABV) at 51.2%, with approximately 495 bottles remaining.
Gone are the days when whisky and spirits aficionados were required to go to a physical auction house to purchase these valuable bottles and casks. Blockchain technology and NFTs are proving their true utility by providing a modern mechanism for collecting premium spirits that solves the decades-old issue around authenticity, ownership, and provenance in the spirits industry.
Metacask has partnered with Italian visual effects artist and director, Ruben Frosali (RubenFro), to create a 1/1 animation representing the Year of the Dragon, the Chinese zodiac in 1988 to be issued to the buyer. The buyer will own the Macallan 1988 cask and the commissioned artwork by RubenFro, along with the audio-visual NFT of the original digital art.
“Metacask auctioned a 1991 cask ‘The Angel’s Share’ in 2021, now just over a year later, we’re back with another much-anticipated auction,” said Nim Siriwardana, Co-Founder and CTO of Metacask. “It’s been amazing to team up with Ruben Frosali and bring to life a uniquely curated piece of art that completely represents this rare and valuable cask.”
The auction will run from February 12th - 19th on Metacask’s marketplace. Cryptocurrency is not a prerequisite to bid – the bidding will be in USD and settlements be in the form of bank transfers or cryptocurrency. This will be Metacask’s second auction of a cask distilled at The Macallan Distillery, after the platform’s first online auction resulted in the sale of a 1991 cask for $2,327,563 in October 2021.
For more details on the auction, check out Metacask’s marketplace: https://metacask.com/specials/the_dragon
About Metacask
Founded in 2021, Metacask is the premier marketplace for the sale of spirits casks and bottles. The platform is powered by the CasperLabs blockchain and modernizes the sale and ownership of casks and bottles through the use of NFTs attached to the physical product. These NFTs serve as a digital title of deed, with complete transparency – not just in ownership and provenance, but also for the purposes of price discovery. Launched in 2022, Metacask’s Trakr is the first fully-integrated inventory management, asset tracking, and marketing solution, available to the spirits industry. Built on secure blockchain and smart IoT technology, Trakr lets brands and producers track, document and report on the lifecycle of every product - from grain to bottle. Metacask is backed by exceptional security and KYC identity verification standards provided by Civic, giving a new generation of digital asset investors, brokers, and whisky aficionados a modern mechanism to safely and securely hold spirits-backed NFTs.
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