I’m practically immune to a PR disease that I’ll call the “high-end spirits promotion.” Look, I’m a simple guy. There I am in this world, bumping along, loving my simple bottle of Tequila, the one that really does taste like blue agave–when suddenly they come roaring at you, making you feel worthless unless you’re into the Extra Reserve Jimador’s Grandmother’s Añejo.” It’s dark-brown, it tastes more like brandy than tequila, and it only costs $190.

I’m sure you’ve seen the phenomenon: advertisements and geeks exhorting you to always “drink up” (2008-style), with bottles of high-end rum, Bourbon, cachaça, rye, etc. Here’s one that especially cracked me up recently, at a very upscale southern restaurant in New Orleans: I was served a “boutique moonshine.” Its pronounced flavor of kaopectate made me long for a night next to a simple backyard still, howling at the moon, avoiding the revenuers as well as any pretension.

The Expensive Stuff may be darker, richer, sweeter, more “intense”–but, to me, it often seems like a parody of its real self, and not nearly as good.

So it was with a considerable degree of skepticism that I agreed to taste the most outrageous high-end spirit proposition that ever came my way: a $12,000 bottle of Scotch. And that’s no typo.

Scotsman Robbie Burns wrote that “the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry” …… and I was sure geared up for an absurdly expensive snoutful of awry.

But one of the reasons I decided to travel to this bottle was its producer–Macallan, who have never gone awry in my tasting experience. They don’t even let you down once you get on their quality/price escalator: I love their standard 12-year-old Scotch, I adore their 18-year-old Scotch, and I am bonkers for the sherry-barrel majesty of their 25-year-old Scotch. But $12,000 bucks? That’s a lot o’ haggis, man.

This “new” Macallan Scotch, available at a king’s ransom, is from lots distilled in 1945 and 1949. They are calling it “55 years old,” and some of the elaborate expense comes from its crystal decanter, manufactured by the uppity-do house of Lalique in Alsace, France. I’m afraid the expense of the glass knocks most people out of the “may buy” category…..but this bizarre example of the glassmaker’s art has its charms, seeming almost Egyptian in style, making you feel as if something has trickled out of a pyramid for your delectation.

There are exactly 100 bottles of this stuff in the U.S. One of them lives at a Midtown Manhattan steakhouse, Del Frisco’s, the northern outpost of a Texas chain not immune to doing things “big.” At Del Frisco’s Manhattan, you belly up to the second-floor bar, you quickly check with your stockbroker on your cell phone…..then, if you wish, you lay down $1500 for a glass of Scotch.

And here’s the big surprise: if it makes any financial sense whatsoever in your life to spend money like this…..I say…..do it. For I was knocked by this glass of Scotch: knocked around, knocked back, knocked out. Forget all that “high-end-spirits” phobia: this was Scotch, man, real Scotch, and, without a doubt, the greatest glass of Scotch I’ve ever tasted.

Here’s the note. It’s dark-ish in the glass, but not macho dark, just a fine, elegant mahogany. The aroma is extraordinary: hints of treacle, of course, but fleeting hints of citrus and spice as well. Surprisingly, for a Highland house, there’s a considerable note of smoky peat….but this is what sold it for me, for I have never sniffed or tasted peat anything like this. The aroma and smell are the apotheosis of peat, the Platonic form of peat–what peat would become if it could become something finer. It seems at once like something that must have aged and evolved a million years…..and like something you smell on the beach immediately after turning over a stack of seadrift. As this quality echoes on the palate, you are further transported by the monumental elegance of this stuff, its roundness, its gentleness. I was expecting, for this dough, a “dynamite” blast of sugar and heat that would register about 112 on the 100-point-scale. No such thing. This is sophisticated Scotch, for sophisticated people.

If you can….please be one of them.

And how should you drink it? “Neat” is good (a word which may come from an old word for “naked,” I learned from my pourer, Brand Ambassador Graeme Russell)…..but Russell was also eager for me to try the potion with a bit of water. It was amazing: no dilution of flavor, not even a serious change in texture. The water simply seems to elongate the experience, to make all those amazing sensations explode in your mouth on a slower timetable.

This particular long-laid plan of Macallan’s went exactly right, Robbie.

Guest blogger David Rosengarten is a food writer, cookbook author, TV chef and wine writer. He is best known for his 2,500 shows on the Food Network, and as author of The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook.

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