The Islay price climb came to an abrupt halt. Aside from one exception, all our top 15 distillery indices lost ground this month. A Game of Thrones release continues to be the most traded whisky on the market. A little late but great, here is our Price Update for June 2019.
With more than 13.000 observed trades, June was the most active month in the second quarter of 2019. Almost 10.000 of these bottles were original bottlings. After our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) reached a new all-time peak in May 2019, it lost 1,6% to land at 209,14 index points.
A look at our region indices reveals where this movement may come from. While Speyside and the Highlands stayed relatively unchanged, the Islands, the Lowlands but especially Islay, lost ground. After our Islay index increased by 25% from November 2018 to May 2019, the 100 most traded Islay bottlings lost 7% in value within a single month. Some of those Islay bottlings that lost value can be found among our Fabulous Fifty collection.
Take the Ardbeg Provenance (1st Release) as an example. In May, it traded for almost 3.800 Euros, but it dropped to 2.700 Euros at ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com. The same is true for the Bunnahabhain Auld Acquaintance, which dropped from 2.100 to 1.800 Euros. Overall it seems as if our Fab50 collection did pretty well as the total collection of 50 bottles is now worth more than 122.000 Euros. The collection gained significantly early this year for which bottles like the Black Bowmore Final Edition, which traded for almost 15.000 Euros in January 2019, are responsible.
Lone Warrior
Looking at our monthly updated distillery ranking, we note that out of the top 15 distilleries, only one index gained value. All others lost quite significantly, with Ardbeg (-5,14%) and Bowmore (-3.12%), the drivers of the now interrupted Islay price race, leading the way. The distillery that stands out is Hanyu, as the most traded Hanyu bottlings gained 15% this month. So let’s have a look at which whiskies are responsible for this.
The prime Hanyu value gainer of this month is the Hanyu Full Proof (Caber Tossing) release. Only last month, in May 2019, one of the once existing 204 bottles traded for 2.600 Euros. This month the price tag exceeded 6.000 Euros at WhiskyAuctioneer.com. Many other Hanyu value drivers come from the Ichiro’s Playing Card series. The Seven of Clubs is trading for 5.000 Euros again. The Coloured Joker climbed to 2.850 Euros, and the Eight of Hearts jumped to almost 7.000 Euros this month.
Remarkable Trades
As we have seen, quite some whiskies lost in value this month. A remarkable example of this is the Glenmorangie Single Cask 5979. This Highland single malt gained massively in February 2019, selling for 1.000 Euros. However, it has now dropped back to around 300 Euros. Also, the Braevel Boutique-y Whisky Batch 2 is currently trading for a humble 50 Euros. When we look at the most traded whiskies of June 2019, we find many familiar names at the top. We see another value loser at the top, the Clynelish House Tyrell Game of Thrones edition. Upon release, prices for this very hyped whisky went as high as 300 Euros. The 102 trades of June 2019 now averaged 50 Euros.
But we also want to point out some value gainers of this month. On top of this list, there is the Yamazaki Single Cask cm700012. This 15yo 1998 vintage traded for 800 Euros in February 2015 and is now selling for 6.000 Euros. There is also the Clynelish Single Cask 5641, which currently trades for more than 3.000 Euros. And finally, we find the Glenfiddich 29yo (1956) release. Back in March 2011, this whisky was available on auctions for 800 Euros. Now, more than eight years later, someone paid 4.500 Euros.
Do not forget to check your personal collections to find out how these latest market movements affected the whiskies you own or monitor.
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.