Collectable Whiskey

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

This born from True Cripplers question in New whiskeys coming soon thread

I know it seems cheap to buy but does anyone know if it will be worth collecting?

Thanks.

Price is never an true indicator of collectablity but rarity is a better indicator. ANd eventhough some marketed as collectable bottles are sold at a premium price ... rare bottles are not limited to this segment and can just regularly priced bottles.

The Irishman is a good example of this. A cask strength bottle limited to 2000 was released at €135 but retailing in Allys for €125. This is priced as a collectable rather than probably €75 for the contents to drink. However they changed the name of their blend from Irishman Superior to Irishman 70 fairly quickly which will make the Superior in my eyes a better bet as a collectable that the Cask Strength and at around 30Euro much cheaper.

In relation to Slane Castle, this is a hard one to call so early ... as this is going to be mass marketed in the states. So on that basis it will not be collectable. However if it flops and goes from the market it will become collectable. It is a case of keeping a close eye on the market.

Bottles to start collecting ....

When a regular bottling changes livery (Label bottle shape etc) The more common the bottlwe though the longer you'll have to hang on to it for it to become worth anything.

My very first bottles which I purchased and ended up starting my collection was the Bushmills 12 yr Distillery Millennium Reserve which was only available in the Bushmills distillery shop in 1999/2000 and was not overly expensive. I actually bought a case of 6 bottles to drink and then realised after a few years they were increasing in price.

The latest Bushmills to get your hands on would be the Bushmills 1608 400th Anniversary. £45 in the distillery but not sure if it is available any more. This will become collectable over time but not as quickly as others.

Knappogue is also another cheap collectable if you get it as it comes out. They release vintage whiskies in batches and once they go on to the next batch the previous batch is never repeated. See my website for the different vintages. I was lucky that I started to collect these from the 1991 vintage but had to pay a colectors market price for the 1990 which you don't mind when filling a set.

The great thing about this is as I too want to taste all these whiskeys against each other I can now offer a line up of vintage Knappogues from 1991 -1995 to the society for a tasting if they want it at a very cheap price compared to what they would cost on the open market.

SIngle cask and one off bottlings are the sure fire collectables though. These however are usually much more expensive ... Connemara & Tyrconnell are prime examples of releasing SIngle casks. Bushmills have done it also but in a larger more commercial way so not as collectable. Again look at my website for Connemara & Tyrconnell to see what they have released so far. This is the main reason I set up my site so people can see what has been released. I have covered alot but it is not definitive.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

For me the Jury is still out on the Collectablity of Irish Whiskey.

Yes some will go up in value but there is no real burning market for bottles. Even the Midletons ... once the few well known collectors have got their picks the value falls again.

This has been very apparent in Midleton Rare series.

Some rare early Midletons were going for decent money on Ebay but once the few collectors all had got their bottles the values fell back.

Prime examples are the 1984 & 1985 which I have seen going for over 600Euro but can sometimes be got for under 400Euro. The mid 90's bottles also generated alot of interest for a while and some went for over 400Euro but again can be got closer to 200Euro if you are patient.

Then you have the 2000 Midleton which I suppose people think of as a Millennium bottle regularly goes for over 400Euro but again I got mine for under 200Euro.

Knappogue seems to have garnered a decent collectablity due to the way they released it in Vintages. These were on sale in Ireland ffom anything from €40-53Euro a bottle but the older ones are now sneaking up in price. And 1990 & 1991 Vintages are virtually impossible to get. But others from 1992 still pop up fairly regularly and not hugely expensive so might be worth concentrating on them for a while.

Jameson 18yo came out in Batch releases JJ18-1 JJ18-2 JJ18-3 etc(old label) .... I have the First 4 and to be quite honest they are not collectable at all ... nobody has seem to grabbed onto the fact that they are different batches hence slightly different whiskey. But it is very obvious with the yearly release of a Midleton as opposed to the batch system of Jameson 18yi so Midleton has become the collectable bottle from IDL.

The other side of Irish whiskey is the old stuff ... this is in general all brilliant whiskey but as it goes out of stock it seems to Double in Price. Again you need to be very careful here ...

Eventhough great whiskey not neccessairly collectable either from a financial point of view.

Dungourney went from 375 to 510 in the latter years of it's life in retail and eventhough it is now out of stock the collectors market does not generate much interest in it ... That is because it was very plentiful and there is loads of it about still. On the other hand ... Knappogue 1951 which was also available a few years ago for circa €400 went up to €600 and now around €1000 and seems to be more collectable but still possible to get it at cheaper prices if you are lucky to find it on ebay.

Then you have the Midleton Limited series bottled in the stubby bottles and boxed in heavy boxes ... these are supper whiskeys and were sold at big Premiums ... around 400Euro and up 4-5 years ago have now gone stratosphere in te Thousands but this is a ploy from IDL and does not reflect in anyway the real market and IDL just trying to super premiumise their product.

The moral of the story is that if you buy expensive collectable bottles you may well be getting yourself a piece of history and a remarkable whiskey but if your buying it as an investment the bottles may have already hit their peak and the gains will be very meagre. In comaprison a few cheap bottles I have bought have double in value where as expensive bottles can be hard to shiff never mind get a profit.

However the Midleton VR series still seems to be the most stable Irish Collectable and will garner a tidy profit even if Irish WHiskey does not set the world on Fire.

The rest is down to how the Irish Whiskey market progresses and how Bushmills & Cooley fly in the face of a very boring & corporate IDL. Irish whiskey is the biggest growing whiskey in the world currently but that is from a very small base against Scotch which has 90% of the worlds market. More over in recessionary times it is very hard to see if this growrth can be sustained and turned into a healthy market where many other fans are spawned and become as infatuated in te golden nectar as we are and if that happens than the collectors market will explode ... but that is a big IF.

[truecrippler]

Thanks for taking my question into consideration and giving a remarkable reply.
Lots of useful information there, for myself, it might take a few more reads to totally understand it but it has given me a greater insight into collecting whiskeys and their values over time.

Thanks

[JohnM]

Here's something I was asked to do for Drinks Magazine. It was a bit rushed in the end, so it's not great, but here it is anyway. It's a bit old now.

Starting a whiskey collection – beginners

Collecting whiskey seems a peculiar thing. It's effectively hoarding, hiding or displaying something that was originally made to be consumed.

Most of the time, however, the distiller doesn't really mind what you do with his product, as long as you buy it. That's why they're happy to bring out limited editions in fancy bottles and fancier wooden cases, none of which makes their product any tastier and all of which makes it more expensive.

So when starting off an Irish whiskey collection, you should absolve yourself of any guilt, for fear you're depriving anyone of a chance to taste the stuff – as long as you're not hoovering up special editions from under other people's noses with the goal of selling it straight back to them for an inflated price.

There are only three distilleries producing what can be classed as Irish whiskey at the moment – Midleton, Bushmills and Cooley. After these, what's left is the remnants of the closed Irish distilleries, such as the Daly distillery in Tullamore, Jameson's old Bow Street distillery, the Comber Distillery in Northern Ireland or the old Powers distillery, to name but a few.

For the beginner, the budget will usually only stretch to the less expensive, more modern offerings. So someone starting out should be looking for bottles that are – or soon to be - discontinued or only produced in very limited quantities.

Many collectors, like myself, buy with a view to drinking in the future. While others buy purely for investment. For this reason, the whiskey you target for your collection can vary between what's nice to drink and what's nice to look at. These can overlap, with the common denominator usually being rarity. Others again may chose to limit their collection to one distillery or one range from a particular distillery.

Whatever you're collecting, your best chance of getting what you want is keeping your ear to the ground, whether it's by searching the Web, joining Internet forums, acquainting yourself with other collectors or those within the industry or calling into off licences here and there that might not have sold all their stock of older editions. It's also worthwhile keeping your eye out when flying abroad for whiskeys produced for the duty free market.

So where would be a good place to start?

Recent discontinued Midleton bottlings include Murphys, Hewitts and the Redbreast blend. While they have changed the packaging of their Jameson 1780, Jameson Gold, Jameson 18 and Powers 12. And the recent (more expensive) special editions from the same distillery are the Redbreast 15 the Midleton Very Rares. All of these should become collectable to some degree.

Then there's Bushmills. The packaging on their basic range has been updated since it was taken over by Diageo a couple of years ago, so many of the older bottles should still be available in some places. They are also producing a lot of limited edition, single cask whiskeys. There's almost too many to mention at this stage, but they did do a series for the Celtic Whiskey Shop on Dawson Street. An then there's their whiskey produced for the distillery's 400th anniversary celebrations. This is widely available at the moment, but will be limited to the distillery after the end of the year – and there may be a change in the packaging.

Cooley also offers a great chance for you to get into collecting Irish whiskey. It was set up as recently as 1987, so you can follow the distillery's progress in your collection, buying the oldest whiskey available each year. They have numerous single cask and limited editions in the shape of Tyrconnell and Connemara, the oldest of which are now 15 years.

There are also independent bottlings from all of these distilleries. Knappogue Castle, for example, have bottled whiskey from the Daly distillery (now closed), Bushmills and Cooley. Brogans bottle a very nice whiskey from Bushmills, while The Irishman do some whiskeys from Midleton.

In the not-too-distant future, we can look forward to following the progress of the Kilbeggan Distillery (reopened by Cooley after 50 years) and the planned distillery on the Dingle peninsula, which should be up and running by the end of 2009.


The beauty of collecting Irish whiskey is that it's all of a pretty high quality, so if you ever get fed up with collecting, you can always just drink it. It never goes off.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Excellent John and put much more succinctly than I tried ... where I always seem to end up in a disjointed ramble

[John]

Lots of very good and sound advice there - thanks guys.
J.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

The moral of the story is that if you buy expensive collectable bottles you may well be getting yourself a piece of history and a remarkable whiskey but if your buying it as an investment the bottles may have already hit their peak and the gains will be very meagre. In comaprison a few cheap bottles I have bought have double in value where as expensive bottles can be hard to shift never mind get a profit.

I forgot to finish this point off ....

So buying 10 bottles of Redbreast 15yo @ 50Euro would of been the better option than buying 1 bottle of Dungourney at €500. but it is a hard call as you never know what is going to become a sure fire hit with collectors or drinkers alike.

[varizoltan]

...but i hope Dungourney will go over a 1000 euro mark some day, becouse i stocked up 27 of them at 350 each...
i am an investor type collector, but if it is not going up, as it is mentioned above i can always drink them all

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

...but i hope Dungourney will go over a 1000 euro mark some day, becouse i stocked up 27 of them at 350 each...
i am an investor type collector, but if it is not going up, as it is mentioned above i can always drink them all

Don't worry Z ... I don't think you'll lose .. but you may have to wait just a small bit longer and as you say you can always drink it .

[John]

So that's where all the Dungourney has gone! Well like you Z, I hope that the bigs guns continue to appreciate in line with previous years. I also think however that a bit of realism must still enter into the initial prices of many of the premium expressions. The Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve 2007 is a perfect example - initially offered at €400, the Whisky Exchange was offering £71 off which brought their sales promotion price down to £239. The offer has ended and they have now reduced the normal sales price to that amount! That can only hurt a brand and the sooner the distilleries realise that unless you can create a quality product with a proven pedigree at a realistic price then the market will soon enough tell you what the price will be. Wether they stay with your brand after the attempted 'duping' is another matter....
J.

[JohnM]

So that's where all the Dungourney has gone! Well like you Z, I hope that the bigs guns continue to appreciate in line with previous years. I also think however that a bit of realism must still enter into the initial prices of many of the premium expressions. The Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve 2007 is a perfect example - initially offered at €400, the Whisky Exchange was offering £71 off which brought their sales promotion price down to £239. The offer has ended and they have now reduced the normal sales price to that amount! That can only hurt a brand and the sooner the distilleries realise that unless you can create a quality product with a proven pedigree at a realistic price then the market will soon enough tell you what the price will be. Wether they stay with your brand after the attempted 'duping' is another matter....
J.

In the US they sell for €250. I have bought a good few there. They can sell to the US at this price, so why not in Ireland, where it's made? They are ripping us off.

[John]

I have to agree John. The unfortunate thing is that the issue goes beyond even simple exise duty implications because if you go to mainland EU (into any retailer, supermarket, etc) you will see a similar scenario where Irish-made expressions are available at a much more competitive price than they are here - despite the distribution, storage and access costs. It has been argued that it more or less comes down to volume pricing; but if you talk to any of the MAJOR retailers or bonders they will tell you that by far UK whisky has a bigger foothold; so it must be in the main down to competitive pricing -which in turn would cause a person to ask why they feel they don't have to be competitive here?????!
J.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

.... so it must be in the main down to competitive pricing -which in turn would cause a person to ask why they feel they don't have to be competitive here?????!
J.

And this is the madness of it all .... take the 18yo Jameson ... €125Euro

There is absolutly no sence to the price especially when we can get 18yo scotches in Ireland for close to half that price.

Unless they think that all the developers are still buying expensive whiskey they may find that people looking for a step up in whiskey may turn to Scotch. Very risky business and basically trying to exploit the market.

[hchilts1]

I have two sealed (still in original plastic covering) boxed bottles of Jameson Grace Extra Smooth Irish Whiskey if anybody knows how much they are worth or would like to buy them off me. The boxes were found in my Grandparents house with a note saying they are a shaped bottle, although they boxes are unopened so I can't confirm that. They are 200ml bottles, at 40%.
Thank you

[JohnM]

They were for the Japanese market. They bottle is 200 ml and is like a perfume bottle. It's a very nice one. Not sure what the whiskey in side is like - whether it's different to normal Jameson or not.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Here you go Jameson Grace

Where are you based?

You could contact Ally in the Celtic WHiskey SHop in Dublin and se if he would offer you anything for them. I'd say minimum €100 possibly up to €200 each but it is all down to who out there wants one. . Stick one on ebay and see how it gets on? That is probably your best bet. If you get a decent price use 2nd chance offer to sell the other one. Hope that helps.

[JohnM]

Check your in box, by the way, hchilts.

Regards

John

[hchilts1]

Thanks for all your help with the Jameson Grace, I'll private message those of you who are interested. Please contact me if you are interested and haven't yet spoken to me.

[Hennessy4711]

If anyone is interested in offering realistic prices for my 87yr old mother's whiskey collection, please get in touch with me.
For sale 1950s Redbreast
Midleton Reserve 101-7
Mulligan
JJ McCarthy
Bells
etc....

All bottles in pretty good condition. My mother grew up in a pub and this is her private collection.
She has saved these bottles for 50 to 60 years.

Call Orla 0851688714 if genuinely interested
Thank you

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

If anyone is interested in offering realistic prices for my 87yr old mother's whiskey collection, please get in touch with me.
For sale 1950s Redbreast
Midleton Reserve 101-7
Mulligan
JJ McCarthy
Bells
etc....

All bottles in pretty good condition. My mother grew up in a pub and this is her private collection.
She has saved these bottles for 50 to 60 years.

Call Orla 0851688714 if genuinely interested
Thank you

Hi Orla, you really need to get a picture up here for people to view.

Midleton Reserve 101-7 is probably 150-300 Euro on the open market (maybe more or less as I've not paid too much attention to the market of late)
Mulligan = this is a blend for hot whiskeys and was quite cheap but I've noticed that a few people have been looking ofr one of late may search the topic here and offer it for €50 or so.

Really need to see JJ McCarty to know what it is. Possibly a Pub filled bottle and there may be a name of a Distillery on there too.

The like of scotch blends like bells there really is not much of a market for.

If you stick a picture up here of all the bottles we should be able to seperate the liquid gold from the dross.

[JohnM]

Speaking of collectible whisky... A Whisky Exchange Karuizawa went up for sale on their website yesterday. It sold out in 45 seconds. They released the first half the day before, with similar results.

[JohnM]

...and the Midleton Sherry Cask is now available from La Maison du Whisky.€300.