Citylife in Rugeley and Cannock Chase September 2020

10
Robert French
This bottle of The Macallan 25th anniversary
fetched £2,700 with Richard Winterton
Auctioneers last year.
Whisky Galore!
...............................
By Robert French, Richard Winterton Auctioneers
There’s nothing quite like a dram – and as this most surreal of
years draws towards autumn, whisky will once again affirm its
place as the ultimate winter warmer for grown-ups.
But what about that rarer tipple where one might wisely be advised to
look rather than taste?
If you believe some of the reports in the press, up to a quarter of us
are drinking more alcohol during lockdown, while alcohol sales in general
have risen by nearly a third.
Yet with the value of whisky increasing year-on-year – rare whisky
prices have risen by over 400 per cent in the last decade – should we be
drinking it or investing in it?
The answer is, of course, that it depends on the bottle in question. The
most expensive bottle ever sold was The Macallan 1926, a 60-year-old
cask 263 and one of only 40 bottles ever produced.
It sold at auction last year for £1.5m – meaning that one shot will cost
you the same as a 2020 Porsche!
Small wonder that wealth reports show whisky tops the Luxury
Investment Index.
So, could you have a whisky windfall hiding away unopened in the back
of the drinks cupboard?
Whisky to watch out for includes Scottish single malts such as The
Macallan, Clynelish, Ardbeg, Glenlugie, Brora, Bowmore and Ben Wyvis –
a bottle of The Macallan 25th anniversary fetched £2,700 with Richard
Winterton Auctioneers last year and we sold a bottle of Bowmore
Bicentenary 1779-1979 Islay single malt for £2,600 in our online-only
Fine Arts auction in April.
Also highly collectable is unusual whisky such as Loch Dhu aka ‘The
Black Whisky’. Very different to the golden tones classically associated
with Scotch, this very distinctive single malt gets its signature colour
from maturing in double-charred casks. It regularly sells at auction for
£200.
Other ones to collect include whisky from distilleries no longer
producing – so-called ‘silent’ or ‘lost’ distilleries such as Glen Mhor, St
A bottle of Bowmore Bicentenary single malt
sold for £2,600 in April.
Loch Dhu gets its signature
colour from maturing in
double-charred casks.
Magdalene and Ladyburn.
Two such lost distilleries, Brora and Port Ellen, were due to reopen
this year; Port Ellen has already confirmed this has now been put back
to 2021.
Nevertheless, whenever they do come back, we expect demand for
their new products to be very high indeed.
We’ve found ourselves firmly footed north of the border today talking
Scottish whisky but there is of course a whole world of whiskey out
there, ranging from Irish to American bourbon, which is made from corn
mash whilst Scotch is made from malted barley.
Bourbon, incidentally, is booming – despite a 25 per cent tariff on
imports, it’s estimated that one in 12 bottles of whisky sold in the UK is
American whiskey with Jack Daniels still being number one. Other
popular brands include Stagg, Old Forester, Benheim and Woodford
Reserve.
I must also mention Japanese whisky, which has its own proud heritage
and traditions offering innovative and complex flavours garnering huge
respect and credibility in the whisky world from distilleries such as
Yamazaki, Hibiki and Nikka.
Of course, much of this article focusses on aged whisky but it’s worth
noting that whisky only matures in the cask – once it is bottled it will
taste exactly the same, provided it has been stored correctly, even after
many, many years.
This is a point highlighted by recent news that a bottle of Scotch
recovered from the wreck of the SS Politician – which sunk in 1941 and
inspired Compton Mackenzie’s novel Whisky Galore and subsequent
films – was set to fetch £15,000 at auction.
The cargo ship which ran aground off the coast of Eriskay was filled
with over 20,000 cases of whisky, much of which was ‘rescued’ by
islanders, who clearly felt more kinship with whisky than marine salvage
laws!
This bottle in question, however, is one of five legally recovered by
divers in 1987. Talk about wetting one’s whistle – oh to try a dram of
that!
Robert French offers free valuations of wine, whisky, port or other spirits –
email rob@richardwinterton with photos for a virtual estimate or call 01543
251081 to book a Covid-secure valuation appointment.
The Lichfield Auction Centre’s specialist sale on Monday, September 28
includes a Wine & Whisky section. For details, visit
www.richardwinterton.co.uk.