Imagine, it’s 1993, someone is telling you to buy a bottle of Bowmore but it’s £80, a significant sum of money for a whisky at the time, the market is unproven and still recovering from the closure of more than 15 distilleries in the 1980s. Buying it is a risk, but in the worst case you’ll have a nice whisky to drink.
If you took the risk and bought that whisky in 1993, by 2022 you could have been £16,000 better off. If you had waited until the market was thriving and bought that whisky in 2022, right now you’d be around £8,000 down. But what can this tell us about buying whisky in 2026?
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If you are looking at buying whisky in 2026, whether it is a whisky cask or bottle, there are three key things to be aware of:
- Time
- Inherent Quality
- Chasing Trends
If you’d like to learn more about the nuances of whisky bottle or cask buying then you may also be interested in our free PDF whisky guides download the bottle buying guide here, and you can use the form below to download our cask buying PDF.
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Time
Whisky is a long term investment. Whether you are looking at casks or bottles, the data shows that most gains are made over the long, to very long, term (+10 to 30 years).
Between 2018 and 2022 you could make money quickly with whisky by buying certain desirable bottles and flipping them on the secondary market. This worked during the economic environment of those years (low bank interest, high disposable income etc.) but as the global environment has changed, the buyers propping up that short term market have gone.
If you are after short term gains then whisky bottles or casks are not the solution. Only buy whisky in 2026 if you can afford to hold them as assets for the long term.
And remember, with whisky investment you can always drink it in the worst case—so don’t spend more than you’d be comfortable dropping on a long term bar tab!
Inherent Qualities
Whether you are looking at the Black Bowmore example from the introduction, the Macallan 1926 60 year old, or something more mid-market like the Port Ellen Annual Releases— none of these exploded in value in a short period. They were released to the market at varying levels of premium price points, and it took time for the quality and renown to build.
If you’re buying whisky in 2026 then we’d suggest that together these four factors are a good place to start when deciding what to purchase:
Critical acclaim—what are drinkers saying about the whisky? If you look at unicorn bottles like the Rare Malts Brora 1972 22 year old at 58.7%, the Macallan 1938 Red Ribbon/Handwritten Label bottles, or even independent bottlings like the Springbank 1965/1990 Samaroli Flowers, what all of these whiskies have in common is high review scores. At the peak of the market there was a disconnect between drinkers and value, as the non-drinkers leave the market, quality is likely to become much more important again and can help you find good whiskies with long term potential amongst the noise.
Scarcity—whether it’s driven by a limited edition or by the age of the release, alongside other factors scarcity can be a good indicator of potential. There are a few exceptions to this, for example it doesn’t really matter how old or scarce your whisky is if it’s a generic blend. Equally if the product isn’t great or doesn’t have the industry recognition then this limits potential too.
Older releases tend to be more likely to have been drunk compared to modern releases, so something like early Laphroaig 10 year olds are sought after even though they weren’t technically limited editions at the time. But generally speaking, the most valuable whiskies have both respected quality and scarcity behind them.
You can see the scarcity impact even with modern releases. The early Macallan Folios are good examples of this as early editions were designated limited edition, whereas the later ones had undisclosed release numbers. You can see the number of bottles reaching the secondary market increasing for each edition, and in turn, the stable market price for each decreases.
Vintage/age—because there is a disconnect between quality and value in the current whisky market, there don’t tend to be specific vintages that are considered better than others. There are a few exceptions like the Brora 1972 vintages and Ben Nevis 1996. However earlier vintages and older whisky are generally more expensive. Why? Because older whisky takes longer to make and time costs money, and because older vintages tend to be more scarce (as they’ve been drunk).
Brand—there is still a status element to whisky collecting and so brands with existing prestige are more likely to command higher prices. If you’re looking for something as a long term alternative asset then it could be prudent to consider a balance between brands that are already established as premium, and ones that have the potential over the long term.
Remember, people who bought Macallan casks in the 1990s lost money over the short term, whereas those that held them for 20+ years have made a considerable profit.
Trends
Whisky investment is a niche asset, one that has historically benefited whisky fans that have made either knowledgeable investments based on their existing understanding, or been fortunate enough to happen to benefit from buying something then planned to drink. This all began to change in the 2010s with the rise of online specialist auction houses. The explosion in popularity of whisky as an asset came between 2018 and 2022 with headline returns and world record prices for both bottles and casks.
This shifted whisky from an investment of passion to one of quick returns. It drew a lot of new buyers to the market who were purchasing bottles just to “flip” as a short term gain. The speed and size of gains made headlines and drew more people in. Perhaps those headline increases would have continued indefinitely if the background economics had remained the same. However inflation, cost of living etc were the reality the market was dealt. People sold, prices softened, so people sold more.
The point of the recap is to stress the importance of making decisions based on the inherent value of what you’re investing in and not following trends without doing your own research. And as a final warning, not investing what you can’t afford to lose—or drink!
Bonus: Check Where To Buy
If you got this far, then this last piece of advice is your bonus: shop around and don’t exceed your budget.
The above screenshot is taken from Whisky Hunter, a great resource for researching past values. It shows results for the Black Bowmore 1st Edition in between February and November 2018, and as you can see there is a significant difference in value month to month and (sometimes) between auction houses.
Why? Because often buyers are loyal to one platform. This means the difference between the March and April results may have been because there were two buyers in March, and this drove up prices. When another bottle appeared at the same auction the following months, the pool of buyers was reduced and so you don’t get hammer prices driven up as high. By contrast, the July 2018 result is from a different auction; different pool of buyers and so higher prices are driven up. The November prices marked in yellow are bottles that did not reach their reserve; the lowest had a very low fill level, the other a suspiciously high fill for these bottles, but it could also be the market on that platform was saturated, as an exceptionally high result was seen the same month on a different auction.
When you’re buying it can be difficult to track all the auction houses to make sure you’re bidding on the best value bottles. However our colleagues at The Whiskey Wash have created a new comparison tool, which will also allow you to track current auction sales for bottles you’re in search of. It tracks retail prices too. So if you’re buying bottles of whisky in 2026 this is definitely a handy tool.
And just remember, if you’re buying whisky bottles or casks in 2026, we have a lot of free resources available to learn more about what you need to know and why.
