We can see why it may be easy to think that their must be an uplift in the value of whisky at anniversary years. Those are the ages you see on the shelves and so it stands to reason they must be more sort after. However, when it comes to selling your cask of whisky, anniversary years make no difference to the value.
It is far more important to sell your cask while it is healthy than to try and wait for anniversary years. The value of your cask will increase with age as your whisky matures, but the details from your regauge will have far more influence on the value of your cask rather than whether your cask is 14 or 15 years old.
You monitor the health of your cask using your regauge information (which we discuss in more information over on this video guide specifically about regauges) and in turn the regauge information will act as a guide as to whether to keep your cask or look at selling it. For example, whisky must have an ABV above 40%, so if your cask is 18 years old but the ABV is starting to drop into the mid to low 40’s then it would be better to sell your cask now rather than wait for it to reach 20 years and risk the ABV dropping below the legal level.
Selling a cask rather than bottling
You may notice that we mostly refer to selling your cask of whisky rather than bottling it. This is because we have found selling a cask in bond to be the most cost-efficient way of exiting an investment in cask whisky. This is simply because there are a lot of hidden costs associated with bottling that are not often made clear, these are discussed in video guide 8.
If you have a cask that you are considering selling please head to our dedicated sell your cask pages for more information on how we can help. Alternatively, if you would like to find out more about buying a cask of whisky then you might also be interested in signing up for our free Cask Buying Guide. We created a free, 50-page magazine to help you make an informed decision about becoming a cask owner to decide whether buying a whole cask of whisky is right for you.
