London, UK – A bottle of The Macallan 1926, described by Sotheby's auction house as the "most valuable whisky in the world," went under the hammer on Saturday for a record $2.7 million (£2.1 million).

Want a swig of the most expensive liquor ever sold? It'll cost you.

The rare bottle had been expected to fetch between $935,000 and $1.5 million at auction, but outstripped estimates to go for $2.7 million

The sale set a new world record "for any bottle of spirit or wine sold at auction," Sotheby's told AFP.

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One of the Macallan 1926 bottles had set a previous record for the most expensive bottle ever sold in 2019, when it fetched $1.9 million at the same London auction house.

Sotheby's head of whisky Jonny Fowle told AFP ahead of the sale that he had been allowed to sample the prized whisky.

"I tasted a tiny drop – a tiny drop – of this. It's very rich, it's got a lot of dried fruit as you would expect, a lot of spice, a lot of wood," he said.

He said it had spent 60 years in dark European oak, which was reflected in the color.

"It's not a whisky to take lightly. It's a rich, rich dram, but it is incredible," he said.

The bottles are among only 40 that Macallan, based in Moray, northern Scotland, has confirmed were bottled from Cask 263 in 1986.