How whisky became a smart investment: millennial Asian collectors are bidding big for rare single malts from Macallan, Suntory, Talisker and Laphroaig

Oct 18 , 2021

Karuizawa, one of Japan’s most famous whiskies, is one example of a distiller producing series of bottles to appeal to the growing collector’s market. Photo: Karuizawa

Whisky Live’s Nate Gana says many monied collectors are happy to pay three times the asking price for a prized bottle, but often these limited new releases ‘aren’t worth it’

Coveted collectable series include the Yamazaki Bordeaux Wine Cask 2020, the Brora Triptych from a ‘ghost’ distillery and Black Bowmore’s cabinet of bottles by craftsman John Galvin

When Scottish distillery Highland Park released its 50 Year Old whisky earlier this year, an American single malt lover had to have a bottle for his collection. So he flew across the country from New York to Seattle, and paid Washington state’s highest alcohol tax in America, for a bottle of this strictly limited release.

“If he hadn’t found a bottle in the US, he would’ve flown to Dubai or somewhere else,” says Nathaniel Ganapathi, better known as Nate Gana, the Vancouver-based, Japanese-Malaysian whisky consultant who is behind Whisky Live events in North America, as well as the influential @singlemaltdaily Instagram account and website.

“Stories like this – of collectors paying 200 to 300 per cent over the retail price to get their hands on a bottle – are common in the whisky world,” he adds. “The pleasure of owning it, and the long-term investment value, make going to great lengths to own a bottle totally worth it.”

The Black Bowmore Archive Cabinet features five prize bottles from between 1993 and 2016 that fetched a record US$563,000. Photo: Sotheby’s

The effect only multiplies when we come to bottled series. Recent prices paid for full series of limited editions are eye-watering: The Macallan Fine & Rare series was sold for more than US$3 million in 2019 to a private collector, while a Hanyu Ichiro Full Card Series (previously owned by Aaron Chan, the whisky lover behind Lan Kwai Fong’s Club Qing) sold for HK$11.9 million, setting a new world record, at the end of last year.

“A lot of collectors like to own series or sets of bottles. Series are fun to collect, especially when they are released over many years, and they make a very nice display in show cabinets,” says Sukhinder Singh, co-owner of The Whisky Exchange, one of the world’s largest retailers of whisky and fine spirits, and the owner of more than 10,000 bottles in his own private collection.

“Time has shown that the average price of bottles in a series is much more than when sold individually,” Singh adds. “Today there are more collectors than bottles released, so demand is very high, making series a very attractive investment.”

Talisker Xpedition Oak is the first of a series of releases themed around adventure. Photo: Talisker

Most collectors today are in Europe and Asia, with a large increase from younger age brackets.

“Today there are many younger collectors in their twenties. You did not find this 10 years ago,” says Singh. “Some of them love whisky, others are drawn to collecting things that are very much in demand.”

And, perhaps inevitably, distilleries are responding to the demand by releasing more collectable series.