The world’s best—and most expensive—scotches

Two cask-aged single-malt scotches bottled in 2008 are now available in very limited—and expensive—editions, said Josh Noel in the Chicago Tribune. For the price of either, of course, “you can get 10 bottles of any number of fantastic scotches.” But sometimes the occasion calls for extravagance. So we asked a panel of tasters to describe what makes these tipples “worth the price of admission.”

Laphroaig 25-Year-Old Cask Strength

($500) Distilled in Islay, an island off Scotland’s west coast, this rich, exceptionally peaty scotch offered a nose that evoked “an oceanfront campfire in a glass.” Its rich, woody flavors lingered on the tongue “all the way through its impossibly long finish.”

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Ardmore 30-Year-Old Scotch Whisky 50 Percent Old Malt Cask ($450) Only 1,428 individually numbered bottles of this scotch were made. Hailing from northern Scotland, and lighter in color than its Laphroaig cousin, this “robust” whiskey presented a more classic scotch nose, filling “the nostrils more than the throat.” It was also the sweeter of the two, with a shorter finish.