Mystery Drop 4.0: A £37,000 Glenrothes and a Lot of Macallan

Master of Malt's Mystery Drop is back, and it opens on Tuesday 20 October at 12:00pm. If you read my last Mystery Drop post, you'll know my September boxes were a bit of a mixed bag. I'm still buying in again, and here's why.

What's in it

This time the theme is Macallan, Highland Park and The Glenrothes. There are 4,072 bottles up for grabs at £80 a box, and every box holds one of them, drawn completely at random.

The headline prize is a single bottle of The Glenrothes 51 Year Old, billed as the distillery's oldest ever release and worth around £37,000. Below it are 14 other bottles in three tiers:

• Ultra Rare: Macallan 25 Year Old Sherry Oak, Macallan Art is the Flower, Glenrothes 25 Year Old and Highland Park 21 Year Old.
• Premium: Macallan Rare Cask, two Macallan Harmony Collection releases, Glenrothes 18 Year Old and Highland Park 16 Year Old Between You and I.
• Everyday winners: Highland Park Triskelion and 18 Year Old Viking Pride, Macallan Classic Cut and 12 Year Old Sherry Oak, and Glenrothes 15 Year Old.

The odds

Before you get your hopes up about that £37,000 Glenrothes, here's how the odds shake out:

• The Glenrothes 51: 1 in 4,072.
• Any Ultra Rare bottle or better: 413 bottles, so about 1 in 10.
• Which brand you get: roughly 54% Macallan, 40% Highland Park and 6% Glenrothes.

The most likely bottles are the Macallan Harmony Collection Vibrant Oak and the Macallan Classic Cut, each turning up in roughly one box in five. The £37,000 bottle is the dream, and the rest of the line-up is very good company.

One more number, since I know it better than most. With only fifteen possible bottles, buying more than one box makes a duplicate more likely than you'd think: about 14% with two boxes, 38% with three and 63% with four. My two Bunnahabhain 12s in September were a fluke, so I'm hoping lightning doesn't strike twice. I wouldn't let it put you off, but it's worth knowing.

Worth it?

At £80 a box, this is a bigger commitment than September's £36, but the bottles are bigger names too. On the prices Master of Malt list for each bottle (I checked on 16 October), the average box is worth about £165, roughly twice what you pay. It isn't a guaranteed win, though. Master of Malt say every box is worth more than you pay, and the lowest-value bottle, the Macallan 12 Year Old Sherry Oak, currently lists at about £80, so the worst case is roughly breaking even. The prices on their page are live and do move around, so treat all of this as a snapshot.

There's one more thing to factor in: the Macallan tax. Macallan makes up just over half of this drop, and the name carries a premium over similar whisky from other distilleries, so some of that listed value is the label rather than what's in the glass. It's worth keeping in mind when you weigh up whether the box is right for you.

If you'd be happy with any of the Macallans or Highland Parks on the list, that still looks like very good value to me. If you're only in it for the Glenrothes 51, a 1 in 4,072 chance is a lot to ask of £80.

I'll be there at 12:00pm on Tuesday, refreshing the page like everyone else. Fingers crossed for the Glenrothes 51 this time!