What Affects The Price Of Samaroli Whisky
Selling Samaroli whisky can seem like a daunting prospect. After all, there are so many ways that you can sell whisky. But which way is the most effective? And, how can you get the best price for your whisky? Well, that is where we come in.
At Mark Littler Ltd we can help you to sell your Samaroli whisky quickly, stress-free, and for the best price. We make selling whisky online easy with Mark Littler Ltd.
Whisky Valuation Tips
Are you looking to sell your whisky for the highest possible price? It might surprise you to learn that one of the most important actions you can take is to capture high-quality images of your bottles. This ensures we can offer you the best prices and accurately appraise your bottles. Here are our top tips for submitting images of your bottles:
- Stand the bottle upright so that we can clearly see the level of the whisky in the bottle.
- Do you have the original box? If so, place it next to the bottle in the photo.
- Capture the images in a well-lit room, ideally against a neutral background.
Free Specialist Whisky Valuations
Please use the form below to submit images of your bottle and receive a free, no-obligation valuation from a specialist auctioneer. We will also actively seek the highest offer from our network of private collectors to help you sell your whisky.
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How We Can Help You Sell Your Whisky
Our brokerage service is a simple, stress-free way to sell your bottles of whisky. We will broker the sale between you and one of our buyers. For this service, we charge a 10% commission (inc. VAT) of the final sale price of the item. This avenue is fast and simple. We will take care of everything for you.
Alternatively we can help you sell your bottles through auction. With close to 30,000 bottles being sold at auction every month you have to be sure that your bottles are being sold in the right auction to achieve the highest price. There is no charge for our assistance selling at auction
What Our Customers Say
What To Look For
Linkwood
Samaroli’s early bottles of Linkwood were unusual because their labels read ‘over 12 years’ or ‘over 5 years’ rather than having the exact age on there; they also included the vintage. Some of the Linkwood’s were also sold in larger two-litre bottles, which was quite unusual. Samaroli famously bottled a 1957 Linkwood specifically to send to the well-known Italian whisky collector, Edoardo Giaccone, he went on to produce exclusive bottles for other renowned collectors and celebrities.
Glen Garioch
Samaroli famously released an 8-year-old bottling of Glen Garioch in 1979, keen to prove that age was not the most important influence on a whisky’s quality; it was very well received. The Samaroli Springbank is another highly commended release; many say it was the best Springbank ever bottled. The label design on the Springbank is simple yet effective, with a large yellow background and black font, detailing Samaroli’s own tasting notes.
Dumpy Cadenhead
This bottle first became available in 1979 and marks the start of Samaroli’s career as an independent bottler. This was their first bottle, even though it was the traditional Cadenhead dumpy bottle with a new label. Samaroli created a series of watercolour images to adorn these bottles, which made them highly sought after. Designs included images of horses pulling carts filled with casks and scenes from famous buildings and distilleries.
The Never Bottled Top Quality Whisky Series (TNBTQWS)
This series was the first that was entirely unique to the Samaroli brand. To create the collection, he selected very rare single malts such as Coleburn, Millburn and Northport, and designed beautifully unique labels for them. The labels showed the ages of the whisky and each had a different type of flower design on the left side. All had a gold screw top and the same label on the back with details of the distilleries and Samaroli’s signature.
Red Dot and Flowers
Following on from the success of TNBTQWS Samaroli continued to use the floral design along with the age of the bottles on a red dot on the front. The series was released in 1990 and has a variety of proof strengths ranging from natural strength to 43% and 46%. However, this collection altered the back label slightly, each one had individual notes and information about the whisky, but still had Samaroli’s signature visible.
Glen Cawdor
For the creation of this series, Samaroli took inspiration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth in which the title character is given the title ‘Thane of Cawdor’; interestingly Cawdor Castle itself was not built until the 16th Century, where the play was set during the 11th century.
A December 1919 edition of Glen Cawdor was bottled by Samaroli, of which only four were created. The bottles were certified by R.W. Duthie but proved too expensive and so only two were sold and the others returned to R.W. Duthie, meaning that there are only two of these bottles on the market, making it the rarest Samaroli bottle in circulation.
Bouquet
These bottles have a stopper cork and a large white label adorned with floral designs in black, white and red they are released from Bowmore and Ord distilleries, with only 720 bottles of each being circulated. Unfortunately, a lot of these bottles are not full, due to issues with the stopper corks, many of the bottles leaked during transportation. Both were released in 1984.
The Six Factors That Affect The Price Of Samaroli Whisky
There are six factors that will affect the price of your bottle of Samaroli. These are the age of the whisky, the bottling date, the vintage, whether it is a single cask edition, the level of the whisky and the condition of the label and box.
Age of whisky
This refers to the number of years the whisky has spent maturing in the cask, not how long it has been in the bottle. The age is indicated on the label and can vary from 3 to well over 30 years old.
Most collectible bottles are over 10 years old and value usually increases with the age of the whisky. Whisky over 30 years old is the most sought after as it is the rarest.
Any whisky bottled at over 50 years old is highly desirable and a very limited number of distilleries have released whisky over 50 years old.
Bottling date
This relates to when the whisky was bottled. As bottles from a specific year are consumed, the remaining bottles become rarer, so even a ‘standard’ malt released in the 1980’s can become sought after.
If vintage is not stated bottle volume can be an indicator of bottling era. Bottles from the 1970s and earlier use fluid ounces (FL.OZ). In the 1980s standard bottles size was 75cl and in 1991 the standard size (in the EU) changed to 70cl. Note that standard bottle size is still 75cl in the USA, and other bottle sizes are occasionally used, in which case you will have to use other indicators.
Distillation year
The distillation year might also be described as the bottle vintage, and refers to the specific year in which the whisky was distilled (made). It is one of the most important factors that can impact the price of your collectible whisky.
In general, the earlier the distillation year the more collectible your bottle of whisky. Bottles from the first half of the 20th century are highly valued by collectors and fetch a premium. That being said, the bottler is also important, and so two whiskies distilled in the same year, at the same distillery, but bottled by different bottlers will vary in value.
Label & packaging
The label on a bottle of collectible whisky is very important and should be in pristine condition to fetch the highest value. If the label is damaged in any way, such as scratching, blemishing, pealing or mould, then this will have a negative impact on the value.
The box condition is almost as important as the label condition, and the correct box is very important to collectors. A bottle with a damaged or marked box will be worth less, and a bottle without its original box could be worth up to 30% less.
Level
The level of the whisky has a large impact on the value. On almost all bottles it should be well into the neck, a level in the lower half of the neck is worth less and levels into the shoulder will significantly impact the value.
Older bottles are more prone to a drop in level as the bottles were not intended for storage. A drop in level implicates the long term storage prospects for any collector but as alcohol is more volatile than water it is the alcohol that will evaporate first, which impacts the flavour.
Single Cask Bottlings
Single cask bottlings are generally more sought after, as by default they are unique and usually of a significantly limited edition. Look out for numbers on your bottle like XXX/250, with the second number generally being less than 500, which would indicate a single cask edition.
Longer edition numbers such as XXX/5000 are often also collectible. These longer numbers usually indicate that the release is a vatting of a number of casks.
How We Can Help Sell Your Samaroli Whisky
Private Sale
Our brokerage service is a simple, stress-free way to sell whisky. We will broker the sale between you and one of our buyers. For this service, we charge a 10% commission (inc. VAT) of the final sale price of the item. This avenue is fast and simple. We will take care of everything for you.
Auction
At Mark Littler Ltd we can also help you to sell whisky via auction. We have teamed up with the country’s leading online whisky auctions to help you to sell whisky at auction without the hassle. This is a great option for lower-value bottles, or if you do not mind taking some risks.
Shop
The final option is selling your whisky through our one-of-a-kind online shop. On our shop, we broker the sale of high-value bottles for our customers. Your bottle will sit amongst rare and expensive whisky and our advertising campaigns aim to draw the eye of whisky collectors everywhere.
Free Specialist Whisky Valuations
Please use the form below to submit images of your bottle and receive a free, no-obligation valuation from a specialist auctioneer. We will also actively seek the highest offer from our network of private collectors to help you sell your whisky.
"*" indicates required fields
The History Of Samaroli
Samaroli is a name that is synonymous with rarity for many whisky enthusiasts. Established by Silvano S Samaroli, they were the first fully dedicated independent bottlers to promote whisky at cask strength. It is one of the few remaining companies to still market the benefits of aging in the bottle, with the famous slogan ‘Further matures in its bottle’.
The company began as an importer of blended scotch and single malts starting with Linkwood and then moving onto Glen Garioch. It then started releasing its own bottlings in 1979, with a dumpy Cadenhead and then a series entitled ‘Flowers’ in 1981. Over the course of the 1980s, Samaroli sought out individuals from Cadenhead directly; this was when cask strength bottlings came into play. The first examples of these were the 1971 Glen Garioch 59.6%ABV and the 1969 Glen Brant 59%ABV. While some were the vattings of several casks, other, smaller batches originated from singles.
By the end of the decade, the company had shifted to bottling most at cask strength and then during the 1990s, Samaroli looked to a more diverse variety of sources. Change came in 2008 when Antonio Bieve took over the day-to-day running of the business; Samaroli still had an integral role until February 2017 when he died.
To this day, the company still releases bottlings that are both high in quality and unique in character and although there is more cohesion to its output, thy still use the same label shape and bottle design. Many Samaroli bottlings are industry legends; produced by collectors, they are much-sought-after, with lively bidding wars taking place whenever they are available in auctions. Even the labels, with their artistic and elegant designs have become a benchmark for many newer independent bottlers.
Samaroli designed his own logo and many of his own labels; he enjoyed painting them in water colour, as a self-confessed perfectionist he preferred to create his own pieces rather than work with marketing agencies.
A 15-year-old bottle of Samaroli 1967 Laphroaig signed by Samaroli himself recently sold for £61,000.
Send us details about your bottle directly via email or use the form below.
We contact our international network of customers for the best offers.
If you decide to proceed with an offer we issue you with a contract.
Send us your bottle. We have a fully insured courier service available.
We complete the sale with the buyer and send your funds via BACS.
