Balvenie Tun 1401 Batch 1

Nice to have a complete set :) equally nice to be able to dip in to test the quality :)=)

I really loved the tun 1401, consistently superb batches of whisky and will be buying the next uk release when it comes out if I am quick enough and have the cash. Curious to know how much you paid for batch 2 and how much you expect to make?

There is still the odd bottle of batch 2 floating around and depending on how lucky you are (without giving away some of my sourcing secrets) you can find it for anything from £150 to £300 at this point in time. Naturally, I buy any £150 bottles I see.

Short term, I don't think UK batches will go up that quickly, but US batches and travel retail seem to double in price within a short time frame.

Over a 5 to 10 year window (which is my time frame). I would expect Batch 1 to be worth £2.5k to £5k and then all of the other early batches to be worth between £500 to £1500 depending on - frequency in auctions, published scores by noted reviewers, market expansion, etc.

It is increasingly seen as an iconic whisky and despite still being occasionally available in some bizarre outlets for retail price, it tracks higher every auction aside from being some of the best damned whiskies I have every drunk.

Thats not a bad return on your money. Do you think if the Tun series is still being bottled in 5-10 years people will pay between £500-1500 for early batches? Also how many other bottles would you say you have in total and what have you been selling recently and for how much profit. I find the whole whisky buying/selling thing really interesting, thanks.

Hi Kian. Whisky is one of the best investments in the global market today for any kind of investment level. I used to be a market analyst and have not seen annual growth rates approaching this with such stability anywhere else. Of course, things can go up and down, but even if the recession leads into another boom cycle it should just increase the demand for luxury goods. So, for luxury commodities to do so well during a downturn is excellent.

The global whisky market is growing as a whole, yet the amount of truly old, aged single malts is limited and dwindling in relative terms. I actually wrote an algorithm that factors in a variety of attributes: number of initial bottles, time in barrel, metascore from reviewers, popularity of distillery, how active the distillery is, etc. Then I tracked this back against historical data from auction sites and it was pretty close. The algorithm projects very healthy returns.

And yes, people always want to return to the source, they want the earliest examples of what they have come to love and what made a range popular.

Also, certain releases of Tun 1401 are harder to obtain depending on where you are in the world. However, like any investment, I would never advocate drawing all your bottles from one keg (or tun in this case). Diversification is key, but when you know that something is good it's not a bad idea to go into it hard for a time. For me, at the moment, Karuizawa, Brora, Tun 1401 and a few others are good investments right now.

I have not been selling. I am still in the acquisition stage. In total I do not have a lot of bottles, but the average bottle is worth a fair bit.

I expect, even if things don't perform very well, to have more than tripled my money within a decade with minimal risk.

For example, I have some bottles of 42 year old Karuizawa 1967. This is one of the oldest whiskies produced by Japan, with amazingly high scores by every critic that tried it, less than 200 bottles left in the world, the distillery has been obliterated off the face of the Earth. A year ago you could buy this drink for about £500 a bottle, now I reckon it's over £2000 and probably, within a decade those bottles could go for anything up to £10k if the market holds out.

You need to know what you're buying, but if you make a bad mistake or two you can always drink it or give it away as a nice gift or swap it with someone for something else.

Karuizawa and Brora seem to be good choices for a nice little return just as long as you buy the right ones. Are the others bottles you have from closed distilleries and would you consider them to be a safer bet compared to active ones. I have bought a few whiskies over the years Clynelish in particular and wondered had I kept them for a good few years how much they may be worth, but if the distillery maintains the same quality consistently then its probably not going to be worth doing.

I believe Clynelish is Brora. I may be mistaken. Value goes up for a number of reasons - the particular expression came in a nice box, it was limited to a few hundred bottles, it was the oldest, etc. It's always worth looking for a unique characteristic in addition to the reputation of the distillery. Also, basic economics - scarcity breeds value. Snow Phoenix, for example, is a limited edition of about 6.9 billion bottles. It's not very scarce. Whereas some of the 60 and 70 year olds, very scarce. If something tastes good and is scarce it will go up in value.

To cut a long story short yes Clynelish is Brora but they were 2 distilleries running at the same time, only Brora stopped producing quite a while ago and goes for the big money, only Clynelish is now operational. Good luck with it all anyway and if you fancy selling me a tun 1401 batch 2 for £150 or tell me where you found it then go right ahead......

I have chanced upon a bottle of batch no 6 for $258(after tax). Should I pick it up?