The secondary whisky market in November was a mixture of highs and lows. While overall prices continued trending sharply downwards, a new all-time record for the most expensive whisky ever sold at auction was set. Here is the Whiskystats Price Update for November 2023.
The main talking point of the November round of whisky auctions is the record-breaking trade of the Macallan 60yo Valerio Adami. The buyer price of €2.5 million realised at Sotheby’s London on November 18 equalled a value gain of 128% compared to the €1.1 million trade from February 2020 at Whisky Auctioneer. But as it turns out, this new world record price was not indicative of the current state of the overall secondary whisky market.
Record Losses
The 500 historically most traded whiskies lost 8% of their market value in November. This represents the most significant one-month loss of the Whiskystats Whisky Index of all time. Out of the 66 Whiskystats auction price indices covering different market segments, only six were positive in November. This is the second lowest value ever seen, undercut only by September 2022, when a mere four market indices were in the green.
The Whiskystats Whisky Index and the Scotland index retreated to their January 2021 levels, indicating that all value gains over the past three years have literally vanished. The index for collectable Japanese whiskies also continued its downward trend, losing 2.7% in November and throwing the index back to where it was in September 2019. On a regional level, Islay stands out as the 100 historically most traded Islay whiskies lost more than 12% in value.
The main driver of the Islay index loss was Ardbeg. The respective Ardbeg index is down by 9% in November, the biggest one-month loss ever recorded for this brand. Whiskies such as the above displayed Ardbeg Feis Ile 2011 are responsible. The record highs for this bottling exceeded €2,000 back in 2020 and 2021. In November 2023, auction buyer prices dropped to around €1,000 at Whisky Auctioneer, Scotch Whisky Auctions and WhiskyAuction.com.
The list of record value losses is quite long this month. Another prominent example is Brora, where the 38 traded whiskies lost 7.7% in value, marking the second biggest downturn in Brora auction history. A prime example is the 30-year-old Brora Special Release 2009, which peaked in June 2022 at €2,800. The latest buyer prices were below €1,400, a price level not seen since August 2019.
For the Records
However, it was not all doom and gloom on the whisky auction market in November. Of the six market segments in the plus, Glenfarclas stood out with an auction price index gain of 7.3%. The main driver among the 100 included Glenfarclas index whiskies is the below displayed Glenfarclas Family Collector Series II, which sold for more than €8,000 at Scotch Whisky Auctions, marking a new all-time record.
Aberlour (+2.2%) and Mortlach (+3.4%) were the two other noteworthy value-gaining segments. For Mortlach, however, this uptick comes after many months of value losses, which saw the Mortlach auction price index dropping below its starting value of 100 index points. Aberlour, on the other hand, saw value gains for the second consecutive month. The Aberlour index now stands just below 200 index points.
The whisky auction market is rapidly changing at the moment. Extreme value gains follow extreme losses, and once set-in-stone market rules no longer seem to apply. But this market turmoil also creates great opportunities, especially for whisky buyers. Make sure you stay on top of the market with a Whiskystats membership.
Disclaimer: The whisky market insights presented in this article are based on the Whiskystats database at the time of publication. Whiskystats is constantly adding new data; therefore, some charts and figures may not match after initial publication.