The Macallan Archival series explodes in price. Bowmore increased significantly, too, while some Tomatins, Auchroisks, and Port Ellens belong to the biggest value losers of this month. Here is the Whiskystats Price Update for February 2021.

With 15,6 thousand price observations, our February round of auctions was not too spectacular regarding the number of traded bottles. But the average price of almost 680 Euros per bottle indicates that there were some pretty expensive lots this month. Responsible for this was the Perfect Collection Part 2, which ran on WhiskyAuctioneer.com. For those 17 hundred bottles, we observed an average price of no less than 2550 Euros. At the top of the list is the Macallan 60yo (1926) Fine and Rare, which sold for 1 Million GBP straight.

Pushed by this, our two major market indices continue to break records. The Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) gained 3,6% again and now stands at 272 index points. Since November 2020, only within three rounds of auctions, the Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) climbed a staggering 16%. Our Fabulous Fifty collection (Fab50) gained almost 5,5% in February 2021 alone. The fifty included bottles are now worth 136 thousand Euros, marking a new record.
To make this less abstract, let’s look at some of the bottles in our Fab50 collection. The Springbank 32yo jumped across 2000 Euros for the first time. The Ardbeg 25yo Lord of the Isle is now selling for 1600 Euros after fluctuating around 1000 Euros for more than four years. And the Octomore 2.2 is tackling 800 Euros instead of the 500ish Euros it used to achieve on auctions.

Price Explosion

It is not the first time and likely not the last time we talk about the Macallan Archival series. But what happened here surely justifies some extra attention. Prices for the first five editions completely erupted. The Folio 1 now reached a price sphere of above 10.000 Euros per bottle. Only back in November that was 4.500 Euros, then in December, we saw 5.800 Euros, and in January, it already was 8.000 Euros. Similar story for the Folio 2, which now has a price label of 6.000 Euros. Even the below-displayed Folio 3 is currently selling for more than 5.000 Euros.

The Macallan Archival Series, combined with other solid value gainers, like the Macallan Boutique Collection 2016, also explains the performance of our Macallan index this month. With a 5.5% index gain, Macallan again overtook Hanyu in our distillery ranking. Another strong-performing distillery was Bowmore. The historically most traded Bowmore releases gained almost 5% in value in February 2021. Bowmore thus climbed the ladder of our ranking by two places and secured a spot again among the Top 10. Our Karuizawa index jumped above 400 index points for the first time since November 2018. At the peak of the Japanese whisky boom in June 2015, Karuizawa even topped our ranking with 460 index points.

Biggest Value Losers

But not all market segments are in the greens this month. Surprisingly, our Port Ellen index lost 13%, thus dropping out of our Top 10. Responsible for this is the Port Ellen 12yo Fine Malt Selection from James MacArthur. In December, we had a price observation of 18.500 Euros before a mindblowing 55.000 Euros was paid in January. The price dropped back to 30.000 Euros and dragged our Port Ellen index along. But other Port Ellen releases experienced a price consolidation after recent gains, like the Port Ellen 19yo (1982) Old Malt Cask from Douglas Laing. So to put this in perspective, this quite drastic loss of our Port Ellen index comes after 13 months in which this index gained more than 30% in total.

Our Tomatin index lost 8% too. And again, it looks like this is rather a price normalization than a drop. The above-displayed Tomatin Rare Cask 1 now fell back to 1000 Euros after the 1850 Euros from January. Similar patterns can be observed for other releases, like the Tomatin Cu Bocan from 2006. And finally, we also want to look at why our Auchroisk index also lost 11%. There is, for example, the Auchroisk 30yo (1982) which now sold for 300 Euros after it almost achieved 400 Euros over the last couple of months. Or the Auchroisk 95.1 from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, which was traded for 700 Euros in January, and now only hit 400 Euros.

As every month, remember to recheck on the latest price changes of your personal whisky collections as well!

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, and therefore some charts and figures may not match after initial publication.