Port Ellen attempts a comeback, a Daftmill single cask reaches new heights, and we compare the historical performance of the major independent bottlers. Here is the Price Update for June 2020.
We observed more than thirteen-thousand bottles of whisky changing ownership in June 2020 as the market continues to normalize following the turbulent spring months. Among these observations, we find the Ardbeg Black (Feis Ile 2020) release that arrived at auctions as its Committee Reserve sibling did back in March. The 67 trades make it the most traded whisky of the month. The prices varied between 150 and 196 Euros and averaged 166 Euros per bottle.
In June, the overall market moved sideways, as indicated by our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI). According to the WWI, the historically 500 most traded whiskies lost 0,41% in value. The same is true for our hand-selected Fab50 collection. These fifty bottles lost 1,36% and now are worth a total of 122.000 Euros. This is still the same price level as of August 2018.
Port Ellen Comeback?
There is no question that Port Ellen belongs to the most iconic collectable whisky brands. But since early 2018, we observed stagnant prices, and from April to December 2019, prices for Port Ellen even decreased significantly. Over these eight months, the overall price level of Port Ellen decreased by more than 18%, as indicated by our index. This resulted in the distillery dopping out of the top ten distillery ranking.
But change is afoot. In January and February 2020, the value of the most traded Port Ellens increased by 8%. After a minor setback in March, this trend continued from April through June. In the latest round of auctions, the most traded Port Ellen releases gained 4,5%. So maybe last year’s setback was only due to Diageo’s announcement to revive this silent Islay distillery. After all, the announcement and the start of the eight-month index decrease coincidently fall into the same time.
Major Bottlers
About three-quarters of the bottles traded on auctions are Original Bottlings, i.e. whiskies released by the respective distillery. Among the most traded Independent Bottlers of June 2020, we find the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Gordon & MacPhail, Signatory Vintage and Cadenhead. For all of these bottlers, we calculate a Bottler Index. For each month, these indices represent the change in value of the most traded releases of each bottler.
When we compare these indices directly, we find some interesting patterns. The most-traded releases from Signatory Vintage are on par with the Original Bottlings. Both indices currently stand way beyond the 200 points threshold. Then we see Gordon & MacPhail and the Scotch Malt Whisky Society at the same level at around 180 index points. Far behind is Cadenhead whose index does not show any gains in the last four years.
Remarkable Trades
We also want to point out some single bottles that experienced remarkable price observations. Among this month’s highest value gainers, we find the Daftmill Single Bourbon Cask 021/2006. Released in 2019, secondary market prices for this Lowland single malt lay at around 500 Euros until March 2020. Now, at WhiskyAuctioneer.com, two of the 234 bottles sold for almost 1.900 Euros.
The overall highest value gainer of June 2020 is the Caol Ila 53.11 issued by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and last seen on auctions back in June 2012 when it achieved 100 Euros. This bottle just fetched 800 Euros at Whisky.Auction, an almost 700% increase in price over the past eight years. Strangely enough, the Caol Ila 53.284 (Feis Ile 2019) also from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the value-loser of this month. 420 Euros in February and 116 Euros now equals a 72% loss within five months.
Do not forget to recheck on the latest movements of your personal whisky 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.