One question we often get asked is whether casks or bottles are the best whisky investment. Well, the answer depends on you.
Below we’ll run through the things you need to consider when you are deciding if casks or bottles are the best whisky investment for your needs.
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What Is The Best Whisky Investment?
If you want to work out what the best whisky investment is then we suggest you ask yourself four quick questions:
- What is your investment timeline?
- How much liquidity do you need during your investment?
- What is your budget?
- Where are you based?
Your Timeframe and Whisky Investment
Casks are a long term investment. Generally we don’t suggest looking at them unless you are comfortable with investing your money for at least ten years, or longer if you are buying new make.
Bottles offer much more flexibility in terms of time frame for whisky investment. Ideally you should still aim for long term, but bottles are flexible enough to suit shorter timetables too.
If you are looking at whisky investment, how do you decide whether to buy casks or bottles?
Liquidity And Whisky
This isn’t some kind of misguided pun about whisky being a fluid. Instead you need to consider how much access you need to your money over the course of your investment timeframe.
With casks your money should be locked away for 10 years or longer. You don’t get any annual returns and if you exit early you are likely to have a bigger impact on your returns. Casks also take time to sell in order to get the best prices.
Bottles offer much more adaptability. Time is beneficial when you come to sell, but because the market is much more transparent it is easier to sell quickly within the market average.
What Budget Do You Need For Whisky Investment?
We suggest from £4,000 to £8,000 per cask is a suitable initial investment for a cask between 4 and 12 years old from an established distillery with naming rights. New make whisky with naming rights starts at around £2,000 to £4,500.
Going for more expensive, older casks isn’t necessarily going to be a better investment and doesn’t allow you to make casks a short term investment. If you have a larger budget to invest in casks then getting a small portfolio of casks is a better way to manage the budget and risk.
Bottle investment can start from a few hundred pounds and stretch to hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds. The most expensive single collection would run to around £6million for four bottles but you do not need millions to make a sound whisky bottle investment. Bottles like Macallan Private Eye cost just £36 in 1996 and now sell for over £4,000. While the market has shifted since those bottles originally retailed the point is that you do not need thousands of pounds to start a whisky bottle investment.
Why Location Matters For Whisky Investment?
We’ll start with bottles this time; bottles are less limited by location, but you will have to consider taxes, delivery charges etc if you are buying bottles internationally. There are bottle storage facilities in the UK that will help you store and manage your collection. This may be more efficient in terms of shipping, taxes and eventual sale, however there would of course be an ongoing cost associated with storing bottles elsewhere.
For casks where you are based makes more difference, although this will change significantly in March 2025 when WOWGR is updated. If you are based in the UK for tax purposes then current WOWGR regulations means we suggest owning 5 casks or less as a private individual. As a UK based business you cannot own casks without registering under WOWGR. This puts an upper cap on how much you can spend on casks if you are a UK resident. These limitations for UK based buyers are expected to be removed as of March 2025.
If you are based overseas then you have no limit on the number of casks that you can own. You can own casks as a private individual and also as a business if you have someone who will act as your duty representative – something a warehouse would be able to do.
Summary
When looking at whisky investment it is going to be your individual situation that decides whether cask or bottle investment is going to be the best solution. Depending on your budget and needs it may even be that some combination of the two may be suitable.
If you would like more detailed information on either or both of these investments then we also have two free PDFs available to download. You can download the whisky bottle guide here and the whisky cask guide here.
We also offer professional advice for private and small office funds and can help you manage your whisky investment portfolio. Please get in touch by emailing [email protected] if you would like to discuss whisky investment further.
