It´s summertime, and while the high temperatures make some of us more lazy, the whisky auction market soared up in May. All of our major indices experienced a significant increase. Also, the Ardbeg Kelpie was added to our whisky database.

In total we added 4.460 new price observations to our database. These observations come from ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com (SWA), WhiskyAuction.com (WA) and also Bonhams Hong Kong (BHK) and affected 2.601 whiskies in our whisky database. The average price per bottle was 413 Euros, which is the highest value since November 2016. Our hand-selected Whiskystats Fabulous Fifty index increased by 1,5%. This sounds not terrible high, but one has to consider that this index is averaged over the past six months (six month moving average). The current total worth of these fifty bottles climbed to 90.170 Euros. Two rounds of auction ago, when we introduced the Fab50, these virtual collection stood at 83.000 Euros. This equals a 8,6% value increase! Note that due to the six month averaging this effect will affect the Fab50 index in the upcoming months too.
A closer at our Fab50 bottles reveals several whiskies responsible for this effect. Among others there is for example the Dalmore 33yo (1973) Cabernet Sauvignon. The price for this Highland single malt climbed from 1.300 Euros to more than 2.000 Euros. There is also the Port Ellen 1st Annual Release which price tag reached a new peak of around 3.900 Euros. Then there are the Karuizawas, which were traded at Bonhams Hong Kong. The Karuizawa 42yo (1967) Cask 6426 was sold for more than 10.500 Euros. There is also the Balvenie Rose 2nd Release. A bottle of this Speyside single malt was now sold at SWA for 1.800 Euros. Hence it is not a single member of the Fab50 which caused the massive value increase, it´s rather pretty much all of the Fab50´s which were traded this months.

New Heights

It is not only the Fab50 members that increased significantly in value this month. Our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) which describes the 300 overall most traded single malts, increased by almost 6% within a single month! The WWI now stands at 337,5 index points which is its all-time peak. After its last peak in February 2017 there followed two months of slight decrease. A look at the WWI history shows that May was a month of strong increase in all of the past years. We can only guess what the reason for this is. Maybe many uf us stock up with whiskies before we leave for summer holidays. Maybe some of us get their bonus payments in April and can now spend it on whisky (^^).
A look at our region indices shows that all major region´s indices experienced a significant increase. Our Highland index increased by 3,7% and once again broke through the 300 points threshold. The Islay index increased by 5,6%. After our Speyside index lost 8% over the last two months, it now increased by around 7,2%. This, of course, could be caused by the BHK prices we added this month. Macallan, the most prominent Speyside distillery, is usually the number one favourite of the bidders in far east. We conclude that this May effect does not restrict to some particular whiskies but rather to all classic single malt regions that are the Highlands, Islay and Speyside

Ardbeg Kelpie

Among the 254 whiskies we added to our database this month there is also the Ardbeg Kelpie (Committee Release 2017). In April and May we observed 92 trades of this latest Ardbeg Committee bottling from which 44 trades come from May. This makes the Kelpie the most traded whisky of this month. In May the prices averaged to 171 Euros. Very interesting is a comparison of the prices from SWA and WA. While the prices at SWA ranged from 162 to 187 Euros, the prices at WA ranged from 245 to 252 Euros. It looks like the Kelpie is harder to get in Central Europe but we expect this difference to diminish over the next couple of months.

Also Worth Mentioning

At last we want to point out some single whiskies for which we observed a trade this month. There is, for example, the Glenlochy 39yo (1965) Old Train Line bottled by Jack Wiebers Whisky World. First of all we notice that this Highland whisky is only traded at WA. There only exist 194 bottles of this single malt. Nevertheless it is traded almost every year and the prices experienced a steady increase. Back in the years of 2006 and 2007 this whisky was traded for around 200 Euros. Nowadays, this 39yo single malt sells for more than 700 Euros.

Also very interesting in some sense is the Laphroaig 15yo (1988) Single Cask 3869. It seems like in the year of 2011 this whisky was seen as nothing too special since you were able to buy it for 40 Euros. Nowadays, this 15yo 1988 vintage Laphroaig sells for more than 200 Euros. In our point of view, this pretty well illustrates the massive price increase of vintage single malts over the past couple of years.
 
Like every month, do not forget to check the latest price movements of your personal collections!