Monthly newsletter for March 2024

Dear All,
The Knight Frank 2024 Wealth Report was released a couple weeks ago, and it is generally aligned to what we have already seen in the market. In fact, we think our current analysis is one step ahead of this report, which was fielded moany months ago in December 2023. The industry has approached the report with cautious optimism, and in many ways we feel the same as we are already starting to see an uptick in some key bottles over the last 2 months. Please also remember that this data only looks at a Knight Frank Rare Whisky Index of the 100 rarest and most expensive bottles in the world, so the variations are significant when you cut across the sample. In fact Andy Simpson, founder of Rare Whisky 101 (the team that supply the data to Knight Frank) mentions that:
‘While the worst performing 50 bottles lost 26% of their combined value, the remaining 50 bottles gained 5%, with the 20 best performers increasing by a respectable 20%’
‘In my opinion, some bottles that lost significant value in 2023 will return through the next two years as they are simply so scarce and, right now at least, so undervalued’
We couldn’t agree more with Simpson. In fact, our portfolio rose by a tidy clip of +0.39% this month, with the Karuizawa 50 Year Old Sherry Cask #2372 and Hanyu 1988 Single Nippon Malt turning the corner with increases of +15.5% and +13.7% respectively. Over the next few months, if the global economy manages a soft landing, then we will likely have seen a bottoming of the market in Q2/Q3.
In industry news, the battle for authentication continues and it is great to see new players coming into the market to add more rigour, which should protect both collectors and consumers alike. The Spirit Business released a short article on the Japanese whisky industry for those that want to know more about the in’s and out’s of the category. Balvenie released the 60 year old single malt for a cool $145,000, one of 71 bottles, and the oldest whisky in the distillery’s history.
Marek, Marc, Neil, Gary
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