Compass Box is one of the most exciting whisky blenders on the market. High quality, limited releases combined with maximum transparency, these bottles gained traction with single malt oriented collectors. Here is our portrait of Compass Box.
Founded in 2000 by a former Johnnie Walker marketing director, Compass Box soon established its reputation as one of the most innovative whisky producers. So much so that the Scotch Whisky Association threatened legal actions multiple times as Compass Box pushed the boundaries of whisky maturation and started to include the complete information of all components on each whisky label. So the question is, how does the secondary whisky market acknowledge this inventiveness?
Market Stats
Today there are 151 different Compass Box whiskies in our database. These include not only their major releases from the Signature Range, like The Peat Monster, Hedonism or The Spice Tree, but also the Great King Street subbrand. First off, we look at the number of traded bottles each month. In the graph below, we stacked the respective numbers from the different auctioneers on top of each other.
Before 2017, we seldom observed more than ten Compass Box whiskies exchanged in one round of auctions. This changed in 2017, and now we typically observe no less than 25 per month. Recently we see up to 80 or 90 bottles on offer regularly each month. The majority trade in the U.K. (ScotchWhiskyAuction.com and WhiskyAuctioneer.com). In the below chart, we also added the mean and median prices to the market data for the past four years.
It seems not only did the number of trades increase significantly in 2017, but also the prices. Before 2017, the mean and median price per bottle was around 100 Euros. Today the average Compass Box whisky trades for about 250 to 300 Euros (mean price), but half of the offers sell for less than 200 Euros (median price). This disparity means that some Compass Box releases trade for far more, so let’s look at those.
Expensive Releases
We currently find three Compass Box releases which trade for around 2000 Euros. These three are very limited releases from more than seven years ago. The Numinous Cask recently sold for 1975 Euros at ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com. In November 2018, the Canto Cask 50 sold for 1997 Euros. And the below-pictured Optimism was last seen on auctions in May 2018 when it achieved 2005 Euros.
The Canto Cask 50 and the Numinous Cask also belong to the highest value gainers. The Canto Cask 50 appeared in auctions only twice. The first time was back in February 2013 for 89 Euros. The second time in November 2020, it fetched 1997 Euros, an incredible 2140% increase over six years. The Numinous Cask started its ascent in June 2013 from 122 Euros, while the 2005 Eleuthera Marriage Cask climbed from 47 Euros in July 2011 to 717 Euros in October 2017.
Remarkable Releases
Almost all of the Compass Box whiskies contain no age information. Except for the three-year-old Deluxe edition, there are only two unique expressions. The Hedonism 10th Anniversary release from 2009 was distilled in 1971 and thus 38 years old. And the market accounts for this age statement. The bottle traded for 1100 Euros in November 2019. But the oldest Compass Box whisky in our database is the Bern’s edition. This special release aged 41 years in American oak casks regularly trades for 900 Euros. The overall most traded Compass Box whisky is the below displayed Transistor.
The Transistor was released in 2019 and appeared in auctions for the first time in April. Since then, we have observed 82 bottles changing their owner. Other frequently traded releases are the Hedonism Quindecimus and The General from 2013. And by the way, the most unlimited limited Compass Box whisky was the Juveniles from 2018, of which “only” 14.894 bottles were released.
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.