£50,000 Cognac Bottle Broken, Man Responsible 'Forgiven' for Mishap
After an unfortunate mishap, the most expensive cognac in the world was lost after the bottle smashed on the floor after falling from a table while a customer was looking at it.
A regular customer at the notable Playboy Club in London had the unlucky chance of being part of the destruction of a $77,615 (£50,000) bottle of antique Cognac dating back to 1788.
According to local media reports, the customer involved is a businessman who regularly visits the club. During this particular occasion he had ordered two glasses of the brandy for $7,839 a piece and wanted to see the bottle with which they came.
As the unidentified man stood up the bottle was knocked off the table and was obliterated upon hitting the floor.
The bottle had previously been sold for $37,000 at an auction in Paris in 2009 and was supposed to have been featured this week by famed mixologist Salvatore Calabrese. Calabrese was attempting to make the world's most expensive cocktail for Guinness World Records, but he will have to put that plan on ice.
Calabrese is a cognac expert with an antique spirits collection valued at more than $1.5 million, who expressed his disbelief and shock of the incident.
"We all just froze, then it sunk in. I've been heartbroken. Not because of the value of the bottle, but because it is a piece of history that has been lost," Calabrese told The Evening Standard.
The bottle of Clos de Griffier Vieux was not insured because it had previously been opened, but the slick fingered customer was forgiven and the search continues for the most expensive drink.
The incident appears to have happened on June 21 after Calabrese took to Twitter to break the news.
"Today is a sad day, one of the oldest cognacs (Clos de Griffier Vieux 1788) was accidentally broken. A true liquid history running on the -- floor of my bar which made the floor of my bar the most expensive bar floor in the world."
