By Scott Wright
THE rare whisky market has rebounded after contracting in lockdown and is on course for a record year in 2021.
New figures show that nearly 85,000 bottles of single malt Scotch whisky with a value of more than £36 million were traded in the first half of the year.
Should the current rate of growth be maintained, some 172,500 bottles would be traded over the whole of 2021, 20 per cent more than in 2019 when 143,895 bottles with a value of £75m were sold.
Rare Whisky 101, the whisky analyst, broker and investment specialist which compiles the figures, said the market is on course for a record year after sales were subdued during lockdown.
Noting other physical asset classes had been similarly affected by lockdown, the analyst found the number of bottles of single malt sold at auction in 2020 was down 3.37 per cent on 2019 at 139,044. The recorded value fell by 7.47% in 2020 to £53.4m. However, the analyst declared the market had been buoyed by a “classic V-shaped recovery” following the easing of the first nationwide lockdown in the UK.
November and December 2020 were record-breaking months from a volume perspective, it said, with both seeing more than 16,000 bottles of single malt Scotch whisky sold. The previous monthly record of 15,830 was set in April 2019.
A fresh record was set in May this year, when 16,858 bottles were sold at auction. The average price-per-bottle has also rebounded this year. While the average price-per-bottle fell by 2.55% to £390.81 in 2020, it bounced back and rose to £426.58 on June 30 this year – another record.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here