balancing the peatiness of the mix

The Worlds Most Expensive Whisky

The World's Most Expensive Whisky
Personally I consider this to be cheating! The world's most expensive whisky way released this week by Luxury Beverage Company but is it really the whisky that makes it so expensive or is it the packaging. The victory of style over substance.
The whisky comes in at an eye watering £3.8 million ($6.2 million) in its most expensive form and is called Isabella Islay. There are several different versions too with the customer being able to specify the bottle design. The most expensive is encrusted with 8,500 diamonds with the basic version a mere snip at £400,000 ($740,000).
This surpasses the previous most expensive whisky which is a 1926 Macallan and retailed at a miserly £54,000. To top this it is not even in its original bottle. What a cheek!
The Islay malt inside is not specified anywhere that I can find but if anyone knows more I would love to know. Even the Isabella's Islay website does not mention which distillery it comes from and unless someone would like to give me a bottle to try (hint for Christmas) I will never get to try it to try to work it out for myself.
Just in case you were tempted to throw out the bottle when you were done with the contents then you will be relieved to know that you can refill it with the exact same single malt whisky from Islay. Many a hobo rifling hopefully through rich men's trash bins will be really upset about that.
Quite what this is set to achieve is not entirely clear, a sign of luxury or a fashion statement that none but the super rich can ever attain? Is it really style or just pure ostentation.
I have trawled through several sites and forums and the opinions seem to be a combination of "WOW" and "how disgusting". I suppose that is inevitable at this level of wealth. Every opinion in between was of course on view.
My personal opinion actually is probably towards the "Disgusted of Cumbria" end of the spectrum. I love my malt whisky to taste and savour. It is a drink to enjoy for itself and just because there is some fancy packaging does not mean that the world's most expensive whisky is anything to really boast about. What a difference all that money could make in some parts of the world.
The single malt whisky maker's art is in taking the basic ingredients and turning it into something special. Each step of the process from the malting and drying of the barley, balancing the peatiness of the mix, distilling to produce an individual product and storing it in used aged casks to add to the distinctiveness all makes it something special.
The 1926 Macallan is expensive for several reasons. It age in cask (it was not bottled until 1986 and only rebottled in 2002 to keep it in condition). However there is also a Dalmore 62 at $58,000 and a Dalmore 64 trinitas at $160,100. After that the packaging starts to come into play again. With a 64 year old Macallan but this is in a unique crystal decanter.
Those are probably never going to be drunk (unless the owners really do believe that the world really is going to end on May 21 st 2011, I wrote this on the 18th) since they are collectors pieces. I suppose that the saving grace of the Isabella's Islay is that you can actually drink the stuff and refill.
It so happens that Lagavulin single malt whisky from Islay is one of my favorite malts so here's hoping.