Anyone following the data since 2022 might ask a simple question: Is whisky investment over? With auction prices down, retail sales sluggish, and new releases struggling to find their footing, it is easy to assume the boom has ended. But this perspective misses the bigger picture.
The current downturn is not a sign that the whiskey market is dead. On the contrary, it is a sign that the market is finally maturing and behaving rationally in response to global economic pressures.
To understand the current situation, we must first look at the preceding boom. The years between 2016 and 2022 were a perfect storm. The pandemic left many people with surplus cash due to a lack of spending on commuting, travel, and holidays. Paired with near-zero interest rates, money flowed into alternative investments. This period also saw the explosion of crypto and NFTs, creating a speculative fever driven by a “greater fool theory” where assets were bought simply because their prices were rising. This created a hot, bubbly market that peaked in a moment of madness in early 2022.
The slowdown that followed was not a whisky-specific failure. The market’s sharp decline coincides almost exactly with the significant interest rate hikes introduced to combat inflation, which was fueled by the war in Ukraine and its squeeze on commodities. Simply put, the world got more expensive. Mortgages cost more, and disposable income shrank. The whisky market did not collapse in a vacuum; it corrected itself in response to a global economic reality check that affected everyone’s wallet.
You know what? The most encouraging evidence for this is that whisky is not acting alone. Look at other luxury and alternative asset markets. The fine wine market, tracked by the Liv-ex 1000 index, shows an almost identical pattern of peaking in late 2022 before declining. Luxury watches followed the same trajectory. Even the stock prices of major producers like Diageo and Brown-Forman reflect this trend. The fact that the whisky market is mirroring these other sectors shows it is a healthy market, properly in tune with the wider economy.
This correction is a necessary, self-regulating process. The market is shaking off the speculative flippers and returning to fundamentals where value is based on scarcity and quality, not just hype.
My verdict is that whisky investment is categorically not dead. It is weathering the same economic storm as every other sector. Once global conditions stabilize, so will the market. Until then, this return to sanity is something we should welcome. What do you think the future holds for collecting and investing in whisky?
For a more detailed breakdown and to see the charts for yourself, you can watch my full video on the subject.
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