The downward trend in the secondary whisky market pricing continues. All market segments were in the red in May, including Karuizawa, whose 60 traded releases took a big hit. Here is the Whiskystats Price Update for May 2023.

With the recent addition of Whisky Hammer to the list of tracked auction houses, this month’s Update now includes the results from six major auctions. More than 23 thousand bottles of 11 thousand different whisky releases traded hands. And more than 60% of these whiskies lost value in May.

Down, Again

A major topic in the Whiskystats 2022 Insights Report was the price reversal that saw secondary market prices soar until March and April 2022 and then fall throughout the remainder of the year. In early 2023, this downward momentum seemed to stop, as many of the whisky market indices showed signs of levelling out. However, with almost all market segments now deep in the minus, the May results suggest this was simply a brief pause as the overall downward trend continues.

In the above illustrated twelve-month time window, the Whiskystats Whisky Index, which summarises the value changes of the historically 500 most-traded whiskies each month, lost in total roughly 20% across the board. The Scotland index, representing the most-traded Scotch whiskies on auctions, showed an almost identical year-to-year performance. Japanese whiskies took a big hit in secondary market pricing in May. The 100 whiskies driving the Japan index lost almost 10% in value within a single round of auctions.

In regards to Scottish whisky, we see that all regions are affected by the overall downward trend. While prices bounced upwards momentarily in January and especially February of 2023, the indices indicate that significant market gains are now far in the rearview mirror. In May, all Scotch region indices were in the red. The Speyside index saw the smallest setback, but on a year-to-year comparison, this index is down by 25%.

Karuizawa Noh

Whiskies from the now-closed Karuizawa distillery in Japan are some of the most expensive spirits in the world. From January 2021 to July 2023, the respective market index gained almost 80%, which lifted Karuizawa to the top of the brand index ranking. In May 2023, however, the 60 traded Karuizawa releases lost more than 10% of market value. Consequently, Yamazaki overtook Karuizawa as the best-performing brand on the secondary market of all time.

While every Karuizawa whisky is highly collectable, some expressions stand out. The Karuizawa Noh series is a collection of single-cask releases that experienced unprecedented value gains in the past. Single Cask #6719 once sold for €400 in 2011. In December 2022, one of these 486 bottles reached a €21.000 buyer price at Whisky Auctioneer. However, only three months later, in March 2023, the price dropped to €14.000. And two months later, in May 2023, the maximum bid was €10.500, again all at Whisky Auctioneer.

The price history of the Karuizawa Noh Single Cask #8529 shown above illustrates a similar story. Auction prices for this 29-year-old peaked in March 2023 at €11.600 and then fell dramatically to €6.400. This pattern was also observed for many other expressions of the Noh series, including Casks #3565, #4676 and #5004. But it wasn’t just the Noh series that dragged the Karuizawa index down. The Karuizawa 50yo Single Cask #2372 fell from €47.000 to €36.500, and the Karuizawa Artifices 013 lost almost half its value, fetching just €5.800 after selling for €10.500 in March 2022 and January 2023.

Falling market prices present an excellent opportunity to purchase whisky. As a Whiskystats member, you can set up notifications for the whiskies you wish to purchase and avoid searching through tens of thousands of auction lots. When the whisky becomes available at your selected auction houses, you will receive an email from us.

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.