Buy Buy, Baby: $14,000 Macallan Whisky

"I love to have a bottle of whisky remind me of its original ingredients," Beal says. "I also like it to reflect the traditional flavors that come with its original distillery and how it was aged, like in a sherry or bourbon barrel."

A decanter handcrafted by 25 Lalique crystal makers won't be worth much to someone like Beal if the scotch tastes like burnt kilt. The Macallan 55-year-old was produced in two 1945 sherry casks that were combined in a larger sherry cask in 1949. These casks give the whisky a reddish tint and fruitier flavor, and impart a taste born of global conflict.

The World Wars drained the resources and manpower that drove the distilleries. Beal says production plummeted at most Scottish distilleries during World War I, the prohibition era and the Great Depression. During World War II, a dearth of available land and coal forced Scottish distilleries to improvise, which left a telltale taste on the period's palate.

"Distilleries like Macallan were using peat where they normally wouldn't, and what an elegant profile it puts on the whisky," says Joe Howell, buyer for Boston liquor boutique Federal Wine & Sprits. He first experienced that period's bouquet while sampling a Macallan Fine & Rare 1946.

Howell says other whiskies from that period, including the 55-year-old, might bear the same trademark taste. However, a longer stint in the barrel can drown out such flavors. The aging process doesn't always agree with whisky as it does with wine.