Whisky Auction Watch 24th April 2012

Andy Simpson gives us his weekly update on whisky investment…

I’m starting to think whisky price records are akin to busses! You don’t get one for ages and then they all come at once. It’s been a bit like that for Highland Park values recently. They seem to have been slowly slipping; however, last week saw some great results which halted the slide.

I find this first one a bit bizarre as the bottle in question is still widely available through various retail channels. That said, a bottle of Highland Park Saint Magnus sold for £220…..very odd indeed!

Staying with Highland Park, a bottle of Hjarta sold for £200 which comfortably exceeded the previous record.

On a final HP note, whilst not a record, it was good to see a bottle of the limited ‘Lunar’ release sell for £200. These have been changing hands for around £140 recently (still not bad if you bought it at its original retail price of £70).

Broadly speaking, Springbank values have been stable/level over the past few years. It came as a nice change to see some of the ‘Wood Expression’ releases starting to increase in value.

A bottle of Longrow Gaja Barolo sold for a new record of £89 and a Springbank 12 year old Bourbon Wood sold for £80. That’s pretty much a doubling in values over retail prices for both these bottles.

Sadly, there were no notable bargains last week so my final whisky is the USA release ‘Cask of Dreams’ by Glenfiddich. Last week saw the first bottle appear at auction in the UK which sold for just short of £190. If you’re reading this from the States then snap them up if any are left, especially with a retail price of $100. At 3,500 bottles, it’s a nicely limited release that should perform well at auction.