Always in touch with the beating heart of the whisky world, we have recently had customers seeking advice from our trusted store managers in light of the recent cask trade exposé, ‘Hunting the Whisky Bandits’. As a business, we have always steered our customers clear of these kinds of investments, and would now like to recall the words of our Executive Chairman, Ian Bankier, in the Spring 2023 edition of our Whiskeria magazine:

"I start this year’s first edition of Whiskeria with 'wealth warning' for our customers and readers. 

As we have covered in these pages on many occasions, rare and collectable whiskies are booming at present with demand across the world as strong as ever. At the top end they exude luxury, being beautifully crafted and genuinely rare. The care and attention that goes into the design and production of these items is stunning – they are works of art. And at whatever level you choose to participate, these whiskies are fun to collect, you get to take them home, you can drink any one of them at any time, and their values have generally risen. What’s not to like? Nothing.

But there is a dark side that I wish to shine a light on, and it concerns the growing community of agencies that offer the public the opportunity to invest in casks of maturing whisky. These protagonists convey robust and reassuring messages on glossy websites, they quote random economic and financial statistics, and they promise you that this is a solid investment with appealing returns. If you engage with any one of these agencies, you find yourself on the end of very hard sell tactics. 

And if you succumb, you will end up with something or nothing. I mean that quite literally. You will have paid a price for something that you can’t see in the shops that might be in a dark warehouse somewhere. Essentially, it’s a raw material that in years to come might be bottled and it might be good, and it might be worth more or less than you have paid.  Amidst all of these “mights”, what you actually get is a piece of paper that is headed “Certificate of Ownership”. And here’s the rub. In many cases these certificates are written by the sales agency, not the distiller or warehouse keeper. Crudely, that means that there is no certainty that you have anything at all!

This is very dodgy, and I have consistently advised friends and customers who enquire about these opportunities to steer well clear. Ask the question, how have all these agencies, who have mushroomed up from nowhere, managed to acquire so many casks? The whisky industry has experienced trends like this in the past and they have ended the same way with sales agencies going bust, allegations of fraud, and scores of private individuals ending up with inappropriate casks at high prices. I’m not saying that this is the case across all situations, and I grant that there are legitimate established brokerages and indeed new distilleries who will sell casks to the public.

As I see it, casks belong to the production end of the industry and whisky in bottle is where the customer belongs. I recognise that there are those who do not have a deep liking for whisky, but, nevertheless, want to invest. What I would say to them is go ahead, but the foundation of any investment is to buy well. Buying a cask from a middleman, whose sole motivation is to make as much money from the deal, is not where you should be, especially if you are not an industry insider.

Now you know what I am going to say next, but it is true. If investing or collecting or both, buy the best bottle of whisky you can afford from a retailer – most preferably The Whisky Shop. The very best opportunities are in limited editions released by the top distillers. These can be only available in very few outlets across the world because of their scarcity. The Whisky Shop specialises in obtaining these – it’s what we do. We also scour the market for older releases from the top brands and we offer these to our customers. And lastly, in all cases, buy for love, not greed.

Caw canny, but caw awa!"

Ian P. Bankier, Executive Chairman of The Whisky Shop