INTERNATIONAL. Rare whisky has topped the newly-released Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII), surging in value by 40% over the 12 months to the last quarter of 2018.
KFLII is part of Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2019 and shows that, over the past decade, whisky values have gone up six-fold.
The Knight Frank Rare Whisky 100 Index, featured for the first time in the KFLII and compiled by Rare Whisky 101, contains 100 bottles of the world’s most desirable rare Scotch whisky.
The index tracks actual UK auction prices of these bottles, finding that over the past ten years values have increased by almost 600%.
Last November, a unique bottle of The Macallan 1926, hand painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon, sold for a record £1.2 million.
This rise in values has been partially driven by the Asian market. Sales of Scotch whisky to India, China and Singapore rose by 44%, 35% and 24% respectively in the first half of 2018 according to the Scotch Whisky Association, with single malts now accounting for almost 30% of total Scottish exports.
RareWhisky101 Co-founder Andy Simpson said: “While rare whisky remains a somewhat fledgling asset class compared to some other passion investments, the market for rare and vintage bottles has witnessed extraordinary growth over the past ten years, both in terms of the volume of whisky being traded and the value of that whisky.
“The key to rare whisky’s sustained growth as an asset class is the passion buyers worldwide share for investing, collecting, and occasionally drinking, some of the best and rarest Scotch whisky ever made.”
Editor of The Wealth Report and the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index Andrew Shirley said: “The stunning price growth of rare single malt whiskies shows that the appetite for new alternative asset classes remains strong among high net worth investors.
“However, we are seeing growth soften for some of the other asset classes in KFLII like classic cars that had been performing exceptionally strongly. This is partly down to a slowdown in activity by speculative investors and a return to a genuine collector-driven market. Despite this, the best examples in each asset class are still setting records when they come up for sale.”
According to the KFLII, the 40% growth achieved by whisky is followed by coins, with 12% annual growth and wine and art, with 9% growth.
For comparison purposes KFLII also points to the performance of the FTSE 100 and gold. The former, hit by recent turbulence in the UK economy, has fallen by -13% over the last 12 months, against a rise of 52% over the past ten years. Over the same periods, gold has risen 4% and 69% respectively.
