The Whiskystats Whisky Index is still under pressure. Islay bottlings overtake Speyside, and the Top 10 whisky distilleries move closer together. Here is our price update for January 2019.
In the first round of auctions of 2019, we observed more than 11.000 bottles of single malts and bourbons that changed ownership. On average, 424 Euros was paid per bottle. The most-traded bottling is the Macallan Aera, for which we made 121 observations this month alone. Also among the ten most traded whiskies are the Glenfiddich Age of Discovery (Bourbon Cask), the Glenfiddich Age of Discovery (Madeira Cask) and the Glenfiddich Age of Discovery (Red Wine Cask). Buying one apiece would now only cost you roughly 225 Euros on auctions.
The Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) is going through tough times. From July to October 2018, the WWI reached new records going as high as 210 index points. However, in November, it dropped by more than 6% within a single month. In December it then recovered to jump above the 200 points again. And now it decreased by 2,5% once more. So it will be pretty interesting to find out where we will go in 2019.
Region Movements
So let’s look at our indices for the major Scottish whisky regions. In the below graphic, we put those indices side-by-side to compare the regions directly. We notice that the most traded Islay bottlings gained about 3,5% in value in December 2018 and January 2019. At the same time, the 100 most traded Speyside whiskies lost more than 3%. So after 18 months, Islay claims back the title of the best performing scotch whisky region.
From September 2017 to November 2018, the most traded Campbeltown whisky accumulated a gain in value of around 25%. Since then, however, our region index for Campbeltown lost around 5,5%. Still, Campbeltown clearly separates itself from the Islands region in our scotch region ranking.
Distillery Ups & Downs
When we look at our monthly updated distillery ranking, we notice that all of our top 5 distilleries lost points while all of the remaining top 10 distilleries gained points. Here we see that the 100 most traded Macallans lost another 5% in value which is also a key driver of the above-mentioned loss of our Speyside region index. Since September 2018, our Macallan index fell by 15% in value. Clearly, the Grand Macallan Price Rally came to a complete stop.
Among the highest losses, we see the Japanese distillery of Hanyu. Over the last month, the historically most traded Hanyu bottlings lost 7% in value. At the same time, the most traded Dalmore bottlings continue to gain value. Since December 2017, our Dalmore index gained more than 30%, and in January 2019 alone, almost 10%. Even among our top listed distilleries, this outstanding performance helped Dalmore overtake distilleries like Ardbeg and Port Ellen in our ranking.
We now want to back these findings from our indices by examining some of the price observations that drove those market movements. For this, we picked some of the Dalmore bottlings that caused the Dalmore index to rise and some of the Hanyu whiskies that pulled down our Hanyu index.
You will probably stumble upon the Dalmore Ceti when looking for a Dalmore value gainer. The Ceti is now trading for around 3.000 Euros with single price observations almost reaching 4.000 Euros. Other examples for some Dalmores with substantial value increases are the Dalmore 40yo Astrum and this Dalmore 30yo (1966) Single Cask expression.
The Hanyu Ten of Clubs traded for more than 6.000 Euros in November and December 2018. Now, the price dropped to around 4.600 Euros, the same as September 2018. The same is true for the Hanyu Queen of Spades and the Hanyu Five of Diamonds. The Hanyu Colour Joker also lost value. The latest price observations average to around 2.350 Euros.
As always, do not forget to check on the latest value of your personal collections.
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.