Buy Buy, Baby: $14,000 Macallan Whisky

"Buy Buy, Baby" is a new Friday feature that explores unique luxury goods and what makes them special. Check back every week for more items to put on your wish list.

When asked last year to explain America's weak economy, former President George W. Bush offered this sage observation: "Wall Street got drunk."

If the price tag on the Macallan 55-year-old is any indication, this single-malt scotch and its Lalique crystal decanter probably gave the finance sector its wicked hangover.

Macallan's 55-year-old single-malt scotch costs $14,000.

Sorry Diageo(DEO Quote), but no color in your Johnnie Walker spectrum can touch the green generated by the 55-year-old's $14,000 price tag. A magnum of Remy Cointreau's Louis XII Black Pearl cognac may seem gaudier at $80,000 (though it's not for sale), but a Macallan Vintage 1926 that Christie's sold for $54,000 in 2007 speaks volumes about this Macallan's growth potential.

Macallan released 420 bottles of the 55-year-old vintage worldwide, which seems generous compared with the five bottles of 15-year-old Fine & Rare Vintage 1947 distributed in the U.S. this year for $12,000. Considering that bottles from a larger release of a similarly aged 1946 vintage started at $3,000 and now fetch $14,000, is whisky the last ironclad investment?

"I get samples of just about every whisky that comes to the U.S. to review, but I didn't get a sample of this one because so few bottles came here," says John Hansell, editor of whisky trade publication Malt Advocate. "This is a lot of money for a bottle of whisky."

Is a shot of risk worth a handle of reward? If you're a whisky drinker like Steve Beal, a San Francisco-based writer and whisky expert, such rarities are drinkable history. You don't have to be a borderline-degenerate whisky lover to pick up a 40-year-old Bowmore single malt for $12,000, like the one Beal has in a vault at Bowmore's distillery in Scotland, and drink it for its educational value -- but it helps.