$11.89 Million Is The Staggering Amount By Which Rare Whisky Investment Soared Last Year

As we’ve touched on several times here at The Whiskey Wash of late, there is a growing market demand for rare, collectible Scotch that can fetch top dollar from rabid collectors and investors alike. If you take at look at 50 of the most expensive whiskies for sale on the market right now, for example, you’ll note most are from Scotland and most are limited edition as well as pricey. And then there’s also the still for sale over $1.5 million Dalmore collection at Harrod’s in London. All of this leads to a new report out from an expert whisky consultancy service analyzing this rather intriguing market and finding it is a hot place to be right now.

Rare Whisky 101 (RW101), in its first annual review of Scotch whisky sold at auction, took a look back at 2014 to see exactly how products normally ending up in the hands of collectors and investors fared. What they found wasn’t surprising – a record number of bottles in this niche market of whiskey were snapped up in UK auctions alone. To be more specific, according to RW101, sales

soared by 68.22 per cent at 33,998 (2013: 20,211) resulting in a 69.37 per cent increase in the value of collectable bottles, which now sits at £7.656m (2013: £4,520m).

Those money totals, put into American dollars, come out to roughly $11.89 million USD for 2014, which is a very significant bump up from roughly $7.02 million USD in 2013. Truly staggering.

“The interest in buying single malts at auction is very much from those who appreciate the drink, the packaging and all that Scotch whisky encapsulates as much as it is from investors with a keen eye for something that’s rising in value,” said report co-author and co-founder of RW101 Andy Simpson in a statement. “The niche aspects of Scotch whisky investing means that from an investment viewpoint it is mainly of interest to private individuals rather than institutions, who’d struggle to buy a meaningful allocation in the asset class.”

Though many significant Scotch brands, as well as releases from shrinking stocks of silent distilleries (those no longer producing whisky), fared well in how their bottles did at auction, one notable hit came to the usually popular The Macallan distillery. Even though it accounts for 25 percent of this market, overall value of its expressions related to those interesting to collectors fell by almost 7.5 percent.

With the permission of RW101 we’ve provided the report below for you to scroll through at your leisure.

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