Dalmore 62
It's well known that scotch whisky, as well as being a fine drink, holds increasing allure as an investment, and the value is steadily rising. This fact was brought home with news yesterday that a bottle of whisky has just been bought for £125,000, the highest price ever paid for a standard bottle of scotch.
Of course with extravagant bonuses still sloshing around the banking world that kind of money is peanuts to some, but to spend it on one bottle? You could pick up a Porsche for that and still have change for a night out at Boujis.
The key with all sales at this level is rarity. The whisky in question - a Dalmore '62 which was sold at Singapore airport - was one of only 12, not all of which were released at the same time. Back in 2002 a bottle went for what then seemed an insane £22,000 and in 2005 someone bought a bottle at a hotel bar for £32,000 and drank almost all of it. But that was nothing - the lure of owning what no-one else can now buy - despite an immensely naff bottle which features a platinum stag's head - is seemingly worth over £100,000 more than it was 10 years ago.
Such whiskies of course account for a minuscule fraction of the market but there are plenty of opportunities to dip a toe at a more affordable level. Distilleries these days are constantly releasing limited edition whiskies like Lagavulin's £80 bottling for the Islay Jazz Festival this weekend which was matured at Caol Ila or The Macallan's Commemorative Royal Wedding Edition which sold for £150 on its release in April and now fetches roughly three times as much. There's a premium on any distillery which has closed, or single, unrepeatable casks of which there are a dwindling number. Industry giant Diageo for instance is releasing eight whiskies this year in its "Special Releases" series, five of which are from distilleries which have closed including the highly collectable Brora.
Many fans devote themselves to collecting bottles from a single distillery. Joining a mailing list like Ardbeg's "Committee" will give you a chance to snap up new bottlings on release. When the first tranche of their new super-charred Alligator was made available in June it sold for a comparatively modest £55. It's now selling for around £160, an easy profit for any committee member inclined to make a quick buck. The first commemorative bottling of Bruichladdich's new The Laddie 10, with an "I was here" sticker, sold out in three hours this weekend.
As with all investments, whiskies can of course go down as well as up. Some bottlings, or "expressions" (as they're known among whisky anoraks) bomb but it seems that so long as you stick to big names like the Macallan, Bowmore and Ardbeg, genuinely limited editions (a couple of thousand bottles max) and are happy to drink the contents of anything that doesn't make your anticipated killing, you're unlikely to go far wrong in the current market. And whisky is much more forgiving than wine when it comes to storage.
If you suddenly remember some disregarded bottle you never got round to drinking there are a number of whisky investment sites out there run by single malt nuts. Andy Simpson's whiskyhighland.co.uk and accompanying Facebook page is one, and there's also the relatively new scotchwhiskyauction.com set up by whisky fans Tam Gardiner and Bill Mackintosh. Established auctioneers such as Bonhams and McTears also hold regular whisky auctions. If you're lucky you might even pick up the odd bargain in what is now called "travel retail" (aka duty free) though probably not at Singapore airport. How much would you be prepared to pay for a bottle?
