For the first time in Whiskystats history, we observed more than 12.000 bottles of whisky traded within a single month. As a result of this increased trading volume, however, prices have suffered—especially our Macallan index, which continues to lose ground. 

To be very precise, we observed 12.888 trades of scotch, Japanese and United States whisky in November 2018. Only 600 of those were Bourbon and Rye whisky. So the inclusion of US whiskies is not responsible for the increased trading volume. We visualize the number of trades made during the last twelve months in the chart below. For each month, we divided the different auctioneers we currently track.

It was only in September this year when we observed more than 10.000 bottles for the first time. In October, this figure jumped above 10.500, and now the new record-breaking November round of auctions with almost thirteen thousand trades. And, of course, the total trading volume is now at a record high. For all the trades we observed last month, the price paid equals a staggering 5,86 million Euros.

WWI Drop

So what happens to the prices when the number of offered bottles rises? According to our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI), they drop, and they drop quite significantly. In this round of auctions, the historically 500 most traded whiskies lost 6,2% in value. This sent our WWI from 210,7 to 197,64 index points. The sudden drop is comparable to what we saw in March this year when the WWI also lost around 6% within a single month. So what happened?

For this, we first take a look at the top five distilleries in our monthly updated distillery ranking. We see that the most traded Karuizawa bottlings gained value by around 2,5%. The indices of Rosebank and Hanyu moved slightly, and the most traded Yamazaki bottlings lost 1,8% in value. And then there is Macallan. In October 2018, the most traded Macallan bottlings lost 2,4% in value. In the latest round of auctions, the most traded Macallans lost more than 5% in value.

But actually, it is not only Macallan bottlings that experienced a price decrease. Also our Bowmore (-3,8%), Brora (-5,2%) and Port Ellen (-2,4%) indices lost quite a bit. And there are many more which can be found in our distillery ranking. We also now have a new lower rung in our ranking. Our Wolfburn index dropped from 47 to 42,2, meaning that Kilchoman, which dropped from 45,4 to 43,5, now takes 77th place in our ranking. Last but not least, our Fabulous Fifty selection of whiskies lost 3,3% in value. This hand-selected collection of fifty secondary whisky market legends is now worth 114.438 Euros.

Value Losers

Instead of looking at our summarizing indices, we now want to point out some of those bottles that caused the above-mentioned index movements. First is the Macallan Archival Series. In this series, we find three expressions. Price observations for the Macallan Archival Folio 1 are displayed below. We see that in September 2018, prices at WhiskyAuctioneer.com almost reached 3.000 Euros. Similar to our Macallan index, however, in the months following, the average prices dropped to 2.400 Euros in November 2018.

Also, the Macallan Archival Folio 2 experienced a comparable development. The average monthly price dropped from 1.500 Euros to 1.300 Euros in November 2018. The same is true for the Macallan Archival Folio 3. Here the prices fell from 2.300 Euros in September to 1.880 Euros in November 2018.

Another bottling that contributed to our Macallan index is the Macallan 15yo (1990) Easter Elchies Seasonal Selection. During the Macallan Price Rally of 2017, prices for one of the 585 bottles climbed from 800 Euros to almost 3.400 Euros within fifteen months. Then, in the spring of 2018, they dropped back to around 2.000 Euros, where they remained.

So it seems we are currently observing a market correction for Macallan following the dramatic price increases over the past few years. Many of the very collectable Macallan bottlings experienced dramatic gains in value. The two significant drops in our Macallan index happened in February/March and October/November 2018, and the two examples cited above perfectly depict what was going on. Prices for Macallan have started to consolidate, at least for the time being.

As stated above, Macallan was not the only distillery index that lost ground in November 2018. Our Laphroaig index, for example, fell by 1,92%. The Laphroaig 12yo (1994) Feis Ile 2006 bottling is one example driving this index movement.

In September 2017, this Islay single malt reached 1.000 Euros at WhiskyAuction.com. From September 2017 to September 2018, this whisky was traded at all the auctioneers we track, and prices fell to 850 to 1.000 Euros. And then, in the November round of auctions, we observed some truly stunning trades. At ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com, a single bidder was willing to pay almost 1.200 Euros. At the same time, at WhiskyAuction.com, two price observations averaged around 600 Euros. This equals a solid 100% difference between the two different marketplaces.

As always, do not forget to check on the latest price 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.