A 55-year-old bottle of Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve has become the most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold at auction.

One of just 11 produced by the Scottish distillery, it sold for $94,000 (£59,350) to an Atlanta-based property developer at a charity auction last week, surpassing by 26.6% the £46,850 achieved for another of the 11 at a Bonhams Edinburgh auction in December 2011.

"We're excited to have kicked off our 125th anniversary year in such an unprecedented and memorable way," commented Lindsay Prociw, the senior brand manager at Glenfiddich.

The whisky was produced to celebrate the 110th birthday of Janet Sheed Roberts, the granddaughter of William Grant - founder of the Glenfiddich distillery - and the oldest person in Scotland.

The auction world record for a whisky now stands at $94,000

The cask was filled on New Year's Eve 1955 and over the past 55 years so much of the liquid has evaporated or soaked into the barrel that there is only enough whisky left to fill 15 bottles.

Eleven of these - one to celebrate each decade of Roberts' life - are being sold at auctions around the world over the next year to raise money for charity, so there is a good chance that the record could be broken again before long, so watch this space.

A bottle of Macallan 64 year old "Cire Perdue" remains the world's most expensive whisky after it sold for $460,000 in a private sale in 2010.

Recent research indicates that the "top 10" performing whiskies have grown in value by more than 400% between 2008 and the end of 2011.

Whisky experts believe the market could be worth $27m (£17m) by 2020, a potential rise of 325%.