Question for the scotch community. And an embarrassing one at that.

Two weekends ago my sister, my friend, and I were partying. We ran out of booze and got into hers and her husbands stash and ended up opening a Macallan 18, 1988. We knew it was a good scotch, thinijg like $150-$200 for the bottle. We each had a pour.

My friend and sister both thought it was gross, I liked it, but I like scotch. Also I’ve have had 12 year old whiskeys I thought were more complex/better tasting.

Anyways, the cork broke off into the bottle. Sister told me no big deal and I could keep it. I ended up researching the best ways to clean cork from scotch, and saw that this particular whiskey can sell from $2,500 to $10,000 for an unopened bottle.

I cleaned out the cork, very well. Poured one more dram and set the bottle back into the coolest darkest place I have in my house. Then I told my sister how much this may be worth.

My question is: Is a Macallan 18 from 1988 Sherry cask barrel really worth that much? Did we do something incredibly stupid out of our ignorance of scotch?