A 57-year-old cask of Scottish whisky purchased by a grandfather for £130 in the 1970s is now worth £270,000. The rare cask is believed to be the oldest of its kind in existence and has been described as "truly exceptional" ahead of its sale.
Investment turns into fortune
Angus Kerr, 81, bought the keg of Glenrothes single malt as an investment in 1971, shortly before his supplier went out of business. The commodity consultant intended to buy one cask per year and let them mature, then sell them off to cover his children's school fees.
However, only a few weeks after purchasing his first batch, Kerr's supplier went bust, and all records of its whereabouts were lost. He feared the cask was gone forever, but 18 months later he was billed by the Macallan distillery, which had been storing it.
Oldest Glenrothes cask
The distillery, situated in the Speyside region of Scotland, had kept the cask and all associated paperwork in its warehouse. The barrel, filled on January 2, 1969, is now the oldest Glenrothes cask ever and is worth more than 2,000 times what Kerr paid for it.
The grandfather-of-eight, who lives in Surrey, spent £130 on the whisky after losing more than £1,000 in the stock market when Rolls-Royce collapsed. He has since revealed he is not even a fan of whisky.
Kerr's story
Kerr commented: "I was working in London as a commodities trader at the time. When Rolls-Royce went bust, I lost everything I had invested in its shares. It was probably about £1,000 I lost, which was a lot of money then considering a salary was about £5,000-a-year.
"Not long afterwards, I heard about a company in the city offering whisky casks as an investment. I thought that, if it all went wrong, at least I would be able to drown my sorrows. I paid £1.20 a gallon, which worked out at around £130 for the cask.
"The idea was that you bought a newly filled cask every year for five years. In the sixth year, you sold the first one, bought another and took the profit. I had earmarked the returns to help pay the children's school fees."
Re-discovery and value
He added: "After I made the purchase, I heard nothing. When I eventually managed to get through to someone, I discovered that the company had gone bust. I had no warrants, no proof of ownership and no idea where the cask was. I thought: 'that's it, I've lost the lot again.'
"I drink wine, not whisky, and I didn’t know what to do with it, I'd written it off. Then, a couple of years later, the warehouse contacted me asking for storage fees. I asked whether they had the warrants, and they sent them to me.
"When I heard the value, it was really nice to hear. I really didn’t know it was going to be this good. It is one of my best investments."
The whisky has an ABV of 42.2 per cent and is still stored in a single oak sherry cask. It contains enough spirit to fill 287 bottles at cask strength and is the oldest Glenrothes cask offered for public sale. The distillery's own oldest bottling is 51 years old, released in 2025 at £37,000 a bottle for just 100 bottles.
Whisky broker Mark Littler, handling the sale of Kerr's whisky, commented: "People buy lottery tickets with better odds than this. A cask bought from a company that collapsed, with no paperwork, sitting in a warehouse nobody had told him about, and it turns out to be the oldest Glenrothes ever offered for sale.
"I have never come across anything quite like it. What makes it truly exceptional is the condition of the whisky. Most casks left for 57 years either fall below 40 per cent ABV, at which point they can no longer legally be sold as Scotch whisky, or the oak overwhelms the spirit entirely.
"This cask has done neither. The buyer can let it mature further or bottle it, and we can manage the whole bottling process for them. This one is neither."
