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| Wine & Spirits |
Spirited Portfolios
Richard Carleton Hacker
01/01/2004
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The collectors of fine whiskies play an emotional and mental tug-of-war between the dual roles of investor and connoisseur: They must decide whether to drink or not to drink—whether, in other words, these distilled treasures should be laid down or enjoyed. The decision, of course, is a personal one, but the escalating prices of single malt Scotches—both on retail shelves and at auction—seem to indicate some might be better suited for the portfolio than a snifter.
 In 2001, an anonymous collector purchased a bottle of 60-year-old The Macallan for $21,000. That same year, a bottle of 1898 Bowmore single-malt whisky auctioned for $21,736, and was subsequently touted as the most expensive whisky in the world. More recently, when Glenlivet made a limited inventory of its 1959 Cellar Collection available for charity auctions, Martin Greene, a noted Scotch whisky expert in Glasgow, initially appraised each of the 80-plus bottles at $625. After intense bidding, Greene revised his appraisal to about $1,450 a bottle. Even so, on April 22, 2003, at an auction at The Plaza in New York to benefit the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, a bottle of the Glenlivet 1959 Cellar Collection brought the hammer down dramatically at $6,000.
Out-of-production or rare single malts are not the only whiskies commanding premium prices. As with vintage ports and some Bordeaux, time rewards the patient holder. For example, in September 2003, The Macallan 18 Year Old sold for $76 a bottle. By October, its price jumped to $92. The rarer The Macallan 30 Year Old took an even more dramatic leap in per-bottle value last fall, from $349 to $450.
Taking Stock of Single Malts
The valuation formula is simple: The older the whisky, the higher the price and the greater the demand, because inventories are limited. The recent shortage of Lagavulin 16 Year Old, due to the distillery’s overzealous selling of this slightly sweet and immensely smoky Islay single malt for use
in blended Scotches such as Johnny Walker Black, illustrates this point:
Collectors are now hoarding their caches, despite the fact that as currently warehoused barrels eventually age, the 16-year-old Lagavulin will again flow forth. The illogic of withholding does not deter those for whom possession is its own reward. And this, in turn, creates a market for speculation.
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