[Investment] Investment update - July 2016
Today I thought I would give you a quick update on investment. In my last investment post, I took a couple of examples of bottles which were going both ways: up in value as well as down in value. In this post, I am going to give you an example of a bottle which is rather unpredictable: the Kilchoman 10th anniversary release.
I bought my bottle at the Kilchoman distillery at Easter whilst on Islay, and managed to have it signed by Anthony Wills, the founder of the Kilchoman distillery. I am not sure whether the signature affects the value massively but I am going to do a quick study of the price evolution for a standard bottle, without the signature.
But first, why did I buy this bottle? Well I bought it for several reasons:
1. I was there, at one of the rare independently-owned distillery, and wanted to get something.
2. They didn't have a distillery-only bottling so that was the closest (Machir Bay, Loch Gorm, 100% Islay were available but you can get them in Manchester too or easily online, the Madeira Cask I had bought a few weeks before too)
3. I really do like what Kilchoman are doing, keeping their production relatively small but authentic and of very good quality (no chilled filtration or addition of coulour)
4. It is limited to 3,000 bottles and because the distillery is so young (founded in 2005), this is to me a good long-term investment as the distillery continues developing.
5. It is a little bit of Kilchoman's young history as it is a vatting of sherry and bourbon casks filled between 2005 and 2012 and even includes whisky drawn from the very first cask to be filled at the distillery.
6. It is bottled at cask strength too, 58.2% ABV
7. And as an extra, I knew I could get it signed by the founder!
Now, since I bought the bottle, I have tracked it's auction prices* and here is what the price evolution looks like:
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| Price evolution for Kilchoman 10th Anniversary release (2015) |
I know that overall, the selling price has been over the £88.8 I paid for the bottle but it dipped below that in February and again in the last July auction. It is hard to explain why, it is not that the auction has suddenly been flooded with it -there are generally between 1 and 3 bottles, sometimes none- so it would currently be a bit of a gamble to put one up for auction as you could end up with a £50 profit (+55%) or a £13 loss (-15%). Like with most bottles, I think you are better off waiting for the medium to long-term, particularly as I feel Kilchoman have got a long and bright future ahead... And as usual, if it doesn't go the way you want, you can still crack it open and enjoy it as it was designed for in the first place!
More information:
*sold prices achieved between November 2015 and July 2016 across 7 auctions on the Scotch Whisky Auctions website (https://www.scotchwhiskyauctions.com/auctions/)
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