Whisky is a quintessential spirit, with centuries upon centuries of heritage and expertise supporting its present-day placement as a drink of peerless quality.
For many, its value far exceeds the value of its weight on the palate; with older vintages, older distilleries and good stories of provenance, some whiskies have become phenomenal stores of value.
Whisky as investment
Whisky is as much an art form as it is a beverage – and one that attracts its unique financial interest as a result. Whisky’s longevity only adds fuel to the fire, as older bottles promise increasingly rare returns from quality makers long since lost. A healthy auction market sees whisky collectors and investors trading bottles old and new for eye-watering sums, presenting a tantalising opportunity for those with even a passing interest in the spirit. Investing in whisky is not a trifling endeavour though, both financially and with reverence to the whisky itself.
“Thanks to master artisans who dedicate their lives to crafting whisky, we truly believe it is a drink to be experienced and enjoyed, not left on the shelf”, says Jason Vaswani, Head Buyer for Old and Rare at The Whisky Exchange. “Of course, we do recognise that some customers may want to invest.”
What makes a whisky valuable?
“For me, what makes a whisky collectable or more sought after comes down to several factors,” Vaswani continues, “The exclusivity of a bottling – such as a single cask whisky with limited bottles, or an exclusive bottling for a person or retailer.”
As with any store of value, rarity plays particularly well when it comes to the perceived value of a whisky. This, though, is by no means the only variable. “Vintage and high-age statement whiskies can also be highly collectable”, says Vaswani, pointing to the incredible development of flavour that occurs during the maturation process.
“Another example is if a distillery is closed or ‘lost’ – meaning the whisky is no longer being produced anymore – and some of the casks are still remaining.”
Of course, outside of increasingly rare independent bottlings of these silent-distillery drams, investing in whiskies from defunct distilleries means buying old stock from an already-febrile second-hand market. This can require a great deal more in-depth knowledge on your part, given the already-high prices that tried-and-true vintage bottles command.
Where to start with investing in whisky
From a purely financial perspective, whisky is a volatile investment. Without deep industry-specific knowledge, there is no knowing what specific bottles might accrue value over time – and even with that knowledge, there is no guarantee that price movements follow logic. If you are looking at whisky solely as an opportunity to grow your portfolio, you should look elsewhere; whisky should only ever be considered as an investment vehicle if you’d be just as happy cracking the bottle as you would be selling it.
With this in mind: not only are the below suggestions in no way financial advice, but they are also some of the most exciting bottles and brands into which you could place your money.
From well-aged whiskies with history to historic first bottlings from new concepts, these are some whiskies truly worth the investment.
Best investment whiskies to buy at a glance
Ardnahoe Inaugural Release 5-Year Islay Single Malt
Best: overall
The isle of Islay is one of the most important isles in whisky-distilling history, densely populated by historic distillers and home to a quintessential tradition that continues to enthral and divide whisky drinkers today. Islay’s whisky history is suffused with peat, much as with a great many of its whiskies.
Peat was used as fuel for the fires that dried the barley with which Islay whiskies were made; its smoky, herbal character infused each grain, and hence coloured the resulting whisky’s flavour. Islay continues to be an unassailable producer of incomparable peated whiskies, and a point of pilgrimage for whisky fans the world over. Ardnahoe is the latest name to emerge from this iconic place, and a potential name for the history books.
Ardnahoe is the ninth distillery to open on the isle of Islay, and the first in well over a decade. As such, Ardnahoe’s inaugural whisky release is a slice of Islay history, and a potentially auspicious one to boot. The Inaugural Release is a five-year-aged single malt, made with water drawn from the nearby loch from which the distillery takes its name. Its dessert-adjacent flavour profile of baked fruits and custard – accompanied, of course, by complex peat – make it an excellent whisky to own, regardless of its extremely accessible list price.
Buy now £70.00, The Whisky Shop
The Lakes Distillery Apex Velocity
Best for: a slice of future English whisky history
The Lakes Distillery is an English whisky distillery ensconced in the northern reaches of the picturesque Lake District, and quietly making some of the most thrilling modern whiskies on the global stage. Amongst a series of limited-edition releases that play with flavour profiles and distilling techniques, there are some phenomenal bottles for the whisky drinker and collector; the Apex Velocity, though, is not one to ignore.
The Velocity is one of two whiskies in the Apex collection. The concept of the collection is to showcase The Lakes’ central approach to whisky, in the art of ‘élevage’. Élevage describes the careful development of flavour and complexity as a whisky ages, as a combination of artistic and scientific methods lead the distillery to powerful drams that taste beyond their years.
The Velocity is a whisky given to sherry-cask maturation, aiming to develop stacks of flavour that rival whiskies of even the highest age statement. Those flavours range from Morello cherry on the nose to polished oak and tropical fruit on the palate, with a long, luscious, perfumed finish. The Lakes is a thrilling glance at the future of English whisky, and a refreshing alternative to the long-held conventions of whisky ageing and flavour development.
Buy now £600.00, Berry Bros & Rudd
Glenfiddich Grand Yozakura 29 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Best for: whisky with pan-global influence
Glenfiddich is a crucial part of Scotland’s whisky-distilling history, being modern-scotch architect William Grant’s first distillery – and a predominant whisky producer in Speyside and beyond. Glenfiddich is not one to rest on its laurels either, as it continues to produce incredible limited-edition bottles alongside its celebrated evergreen range.
This is the Grand Yozakura 29 Year Old, a single malt with a historic twist. It is the first single malt to be finished in super-rare Japanese ex-awamori casks. Awamori is a rice-based shochu-adjacent distillate, regional to Okinawa, which has enjoyed an upwelling of international interest in recent years. Okinawa’s awamori production is still small-scale, which makes obtaining ex-awamori casks all the harder for experimental distilleries.
The ex-awamori casks imbue this well-aged single malt with esoteric herbal brightness and spice-laden depth, as well as the sweetness and oak you can expect from long-term barrel ageing. The quality and historic nature of this whisky are enough to justify its place in your collection, but its luxurious packaging sweetens the deal.
Buy now £1489.90, Amazon
Teeling 1991 – 29 Year Old Rum Cask
Best for: getting a little rummy
The story of Irish whiskey stretches back to the 1300s, but continues to experience pivotal twists and turns in the present – as evidenced by the opening of the Teeling distillery in 2015, Dublin’s first whiskey distillery in well over a century and the Teeling family’s second distillatory enterprise.
Teeling hit the ground running, having hoovered up mature stock from the family’s prior Cooley distillery before it changed hands in 2011. As such, Teeling has been able to release high age-statement bottles from day dot, illustrating its propensity for deep and rich flavour profiles. This, a single-cask release selected by and released for The Whisky Exchange, is a 1991 whiskey which spent 29 years resting in an ex-rum barrel.
The rarity and conceit of this whiskey already count well in its favour for collectors, but its quality is another thing entirely. The initial new make spirit that entered the cask in 1991 was a fruity affair, and the rummy qualities of the cask have complemented the resulting mango-sweetness with demerara and baking spices. This bottle will be difficult to keep closed once it enters your collection.
Buy now £595.00, The Whisky Exchange
Fortnum's X Tamdhu Exclusive Single Sherry Cask, 2004
Best for: a department-store-exclusive bottling
Tamdhu is a sleeper name in Scotch, having been quietly producing robust distillates since the turn of the 20th century. Most of Tamdhu’s single-malt offerings find their way into common-or-garden supermarket whisky blends – truly a point in the distiller’s favour, pointing to the quality and reliability of its essential sherry-matured output –, but every now and then, a very special whisky emerges from within.
This is one such whisky, being a completely exclusive collaboration with legendary Mayfair grocer Fortnum & Mason. This exclusive is a single-cask (Oloroso sherry, naturally) whisky that began its journey in 2004, and which is limited to just 283 bottles.
The whisky promises quintessential Speyside spice, with deep dried-fruit and cacao notes and an oaky warm finish. This may well be a dark-horse addition to the whisky collection, particularly as word starts to get out regarding its quality.
Buy now £295.00, Fortnum & Mason
The English Distillery Founder's Private Cellar - 16 Year Old Port Cask
Best for: a slice of early English whisky history
England’s whisky past was never much more than a footnote in world whisky history, particularly in comparison to Scotland and Ireland; the last of its scant few old-guard distilleries closed around 1906. This makes The English Distillery an especially vital part of England’s whisky heritage, being the first to open in over a century. Today’s English whisky prospects are far more promising, but The English Distillery will always be the first.
The English Distillery’s ‘firsts’, then, may be considered amongst England’s ‘firsts’ – or, at least, new from a whisky-making renaissance. This, the Founder’s Private Cellar 16 Year Old Port Cask, is amongst the first whiskies to enter port casks. The 16 years spent therein have imbued it with glorious colour and depth of flavour, as well as its value as a milestone in modern English whisky distillation.
Buy two, in case the first mysteriously disappears down your throat.
Buy now £295.00, The Whisky Exchange
East London Liquor Co Full Cask – Your Single Malt, Neoc M+ Regenerated French Oak Cask
Best for: investing by the cask
An English distillatory endeavour from the bold East London Liquor Co, and this time a great deal more of an investment than a bottle with potential. The distillery is offering you an opportunity to invest in an entire cask, and doing so with accessibility firmly in mind.
This cask is a regenerated French Oak cask, filled with new make spirit fermented from a mixture of distilling yeasts and saison yeast. The oak cask promises brightness and subtle spice, and the new make spirit promises big flavour from the yeasts and the lactobacillus – a bacteria that eats sugar and produces tart, unctuous lactic acid in return – introduced before distillation.
The cask is stored and aged at the East London Liquor Co.’s cask store, and samples are provided to you at key milestones in your spirit’s journey to whiskydom. After three years, you choose what happens next. Bottling and labelling costs are yours to bear, but the result is worth the investment: up to 350 bottles of bold, inventive English whisky, at the cutting countercultural edge of the form, that are yours to sell or sup as you wish.
Buy now £4000.00, East London Liquor Co
Bunnahabhain Single Cask Release - Rare 1989 Tawny Port Cask Finish
Best for: super-rare single-cask expression
Bunnahabhain’s 12 Year single malt is an essential dram for the budding whisky enthusiast and a core bottle for any drinking whisky collection. It is Christmas bottled, rich in dried and spiced fruits amongst caramel, salt and sherry. This is a rare Islay distillery that doesn’t peat its whiskies, preferring instead to express the spicier notes of the island’s output – and earning a great deal of favour in the process.
The good name Bunnahabhain is enough for some collectors, but a recent release is sure to earn its whisky-collection stripes on character alone. This Is the 1989 Tawny Port Cask Finish, a single-cask exclusive that spent the last of its 33 years finishing in a Portuguese tawny port cask. The result is an explosively flavourful dram, a cocktail of fresh and aged fruits with roasted and floral notes to excite the finish.
There are just 270 bottles of this truly special whisky, and Bunnahabhain is nice enough to provide you with a small taster bottle as well – in case you’d like to sit on the bottle for a little longer.
Buy now £2000.00, Bunnahabhain
The Balvenie 25-Year-Old Rare Marriages
Best for: timeless flavours and design
The Balvenie is a rightly-beloved distillery in Scotland’s de-facto distilling capital Dufftown, and a foundational member of the William Grant and Sons family alongside Glenfiddich. Balvenie’s core range of whiskies display a teasing hint of its’ distillers’ precise and masterful approaches to flavour profile design – approaches which are proudly and fully displayed in the Rare Marriages series.
Rare Marriages is a collection of three increasingly-aged whiskies, from 25 to 30 and then 40 years spent in some of Balvenie’s rarest casks. Each focuses on a different flavour profile, and promises a complex marriage of flavours in pursuit of a uniquely excellent expression.
This is the 25 Year, the youngest of the three and the most accessibly-priced for the newer whisky investor. The 25 Year’s relative youth against its rarer and pricier siblings shouldn’t count against it – and definitely not with respect to flavour, as the 25 Year reaches for elegance and fruit via ginger, vanilla and fruit-terrine notes. The bottle and sleeve designs are timelessly iconic too, reflecting years of flavour development as rings in a tree.
Buy now £675.00, The Whisky Exchange
Ardbeg Vintage Y2K Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Best for: whisky from a pivotal era
At first glance, Ardbeg’s Vintage Y2K single malt might not look like whisky-store material. After all, its pixelated retro-future box design is a far cry from the wistful oak-and-ochre box arts of sought-after vintage bottles. Appearances aside, the Vintage Y2K is a collector’s whisky through and through, and its aesthetic a fitting homage to its history.
This Ardbeg single malt is a 23-year-aged one, and amongst the first whiskies Ardbeg produced in the new millennium. Its production came shortly after Ardbeg was saved from extinction by Glenmorangie – and further, the still which brought this whisky into being was retired shortly after its production, after 51 years of faithful service.
As the finite number of casks filled from this historic still continues to dwindle, this ultra-rare bottling becomes more and more sought-after as a slice of Ardbeg’s distillatory history. Having spent its 23 years maturing in carefully-chosen bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks, the Y2K is a nostalgic hit of heady Ardbeg flavours lifted from the cradle of its millennial rejuvenation.
Buy now £650.00, The Whisky Exchange
Verdict
There’s no telling exactly which way the whisky market will blow, be it five, ten or fifty years from now. There is telling, however, which whiskies might be especially worth cracking open on a rainy day – arguably its essential purpose, and true value. The Lakes Distillery Apex Velocity is an extremely promising bottle on this account alone, bringing playful and elevated approaches to the palate stunningly to your whisky shelf.
The Ardnahoe Inaugural Release 5-Year Islay Single Malt, however, takes the top spot – being a highly accessible and highly affordable first bottle from a promising new enterprise.
