World's Most Expensive Wines And Spirits

To impress the most discerning dinner party guests, a host needs to go all out. And to really knock their socks off, make sure everything is top shelf.

The cheapest liquor on this list, an 1811 bottle of Chateau d'Yquem, recently sold for $117,000. The buyer, the French-born Christian Vanneque who has spread his love for wine to Bali, Indonesia, plans to keep the bottle on display in a bulletproof showcase — like a "mini Fort Knox" — until he drinks it in 2017 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his clearly illustrious career. Quite the present to oneself — how disappointing would it be if it didn't end up being any better than a bottle of two-buck chuck?

Click here for the World's Most Expensive Wine and Spirits.

Many of the bottles on this list are priced so high for reasons that go far beyond their exquisite taste. For example, 1907 Heidsieck, which goes for a cool $275,000 a bottle, costs so much because the bottles were discovered in 1998 as part of the exploration of the shipwreck of the Swedish freighter Jönköping, which crashed in the Gulf of Finland.

Others lack the historical relevance, but because of bling that would make even the most fresh-to-death rappers blush, their prices skyrocket. The top four most expensive bottles of liquor in the world — ranging from $1 million to $44 million — are all outfitted with precious jewels and/or metals that vastly outweigh the contents of what's inside.

Whether engraved in platinum or containing more diamonds than De Beers, these bottles probably aren't ever getting thrown out — even when the alcohol inside them is gone.