Karuizawa reclaims the top spot in our distillery ranking. Prices for collectable Ardbegs experience a setback, but old-school Bowmores continue to impress. Here is the Whiskystats Price Update for November 2021. 

This month’s price update is huge, with over 25 thousand prices mapped to more than 12 thousand different whiskies in our database. Every year, we assigned the December and November auctions from WhiskyAuction.com to the November round of auctions to account for their not quite monthly auction rhythm. Note that with our new website, which is currently under development, prices will be updated as they come in. But for the moment, we stick to our monthly database updates.

Karuizawa on top

The historically most traded Karuizawa releases gained 6.83% in value last month, and hence our corresponding distillery index gained 6.83%. As our Rosebank index lost 3.64%, Karuizawa reclaimed the top position in our distillery ranking. Over the past twelve months, both Rosebank and Karuizawa saw substantial value gains. But while our Rosebank index bounces back and forth between 550 and 570 index points since August, prices for Karuizawa continue to climb at a constant pace. Since January, our Karuizawa index has won almost 49%!
This index movement perfectly mirrors the Karuizawa Fugaku Sanjurokkei (1st Release). As shown in the below chart, prices stayed roughly at around 2.000 Euros during 2020. Then in January and March 2021, the 2.500 Euros from September 2020 were confirmed, and in August, the whisky reached 3.800 Euros. And now, only three months later, the whisky achieved almost 7.000 Euros at WhiskyAuctioneer.com. So within less than a year, prices for this already expensive Japanese single malt nearly tripled.

But our index was carried by more than just one bottle. The Karuizawa Fugaku Sanjurokkei (30th Release) now reached 3 500 Euros after prices never exceeded 2 200 Euros in the past. The Karuizawa Fugaku Sanjurokkei (32nd Release) surpassed its initial flipper prices for the first time as it fetched 3 200 Euros at ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com. And the Karuizawa Geisha Cask 4010 is now trading for a remarkable 11 500 Euros. It was only in the October round of auctions when it sold for “only” 6 800 Euros.

Old-School Bowmores

When we look at our Bowmore index, we note that the last three years did not see any clear price trends. The index reached its peak in July 2018 at 270 points but then dropped back to 200 points until November 2020. It currently stands at 230 points, but a clear trend is still not identifiable. However, there is a group of Bowmore releases that has shown strong performance over the past couple of years. These are some original releases from the late 1990s and early 2000s, like the below displayed Bowmore Dawn.

The Dawn now jumped above 300 Euros with one lot exceeding 400 Euros. This whisky regularly trades with an overall increasing price trend. It is the same story for the Dusk, which also reached 400 Euros. The Voyage is constantly selling for above 500 Euros, and the Claret Bordeaux Wine Casks is now close to 900 Euros. Realizing 480 Euros, the Cask Strength (1990s Screen Print) achieved a new record, too, as did the “normal” Cask Strength with 420 Euros. What these old Bowmores further have in common is that they are frequently traded on all the auction platforms we have tracked for over a decade now.

Remarkable Trades

Another remarkable market movement of November 2021 was that the historically most traded Ardbeg releases lost 5.7% in value. Responsible for this are bottles like the Ardbeg 1990 Cask Strength, the Ardbeg Single Cask 2391, or the below displayed Ardbeg Feis Ile 2011. All these whiskies share a similar price history as they saw strong value gains over the past years. But these gains always came with huge price variability, and it looks like this variability has now swung to the downside for many of these bottles at the same time.
Also worth noting is that the Fettercairn 40yo made 3 100 Euros after it regularly sold for around 1 200 Euros the previous months. The Fettercairn 50yo is now close to 15 000 Euros. At the same time, the Fettercairn 30yo dropped back to around 300 Euros after it peaked at 750 Euros a couple of years ago.

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.