The Scotch whiskey industry is worth £3.8 billion a year, and the popularity of whisky continues to rise all around the world. HMRC’s export figures for 2019 show that there was a worldwide growth rate of 4.4 per cent, as Scotch continues to grow in more than 100 different global markets.
The markets have been good for luxury items, with Andrew Shirley, who helps to compile Knight Frank’s annual wealth report and its Luxury Investment Index, saying that 2021 had been a ‘really, really strong year’ for the luxury goods he tracks, including art, cars, watches and whisky, reports Capital.com.
Investing in rare whisky bottles can be a lucrative venture, with headlines telling of rare vintage bottles of Macallan reaching over £1 million at auction.
But if you’re just getting started in whisky investment, you are not going to make that kind of profit overnight with £5,000. However, investing in cask whisky could be a much smarter choice.
Casks are a wise investment because they’re one of the safest assets, along with gold, to invest in. As the whisky matures inside a cask, it becomes smoother, richer and more valuable.
There are some important factors to take into consideration, such as the quality of the liquid, the wood of the cask it is ageing in, which needs to be of strong and high quality to prevent leakage, and, importantly, picking who to partner with for cask investment as wells ensuring there is high-quality control of cask storage.
Cask whisky makes an ideal investment for your first £5,000, as each cask will be unique due to the nature of the process. After the minimum investment period of three years and a day, you can choose to bottle the whisky or leave it to mature further, providing additional flexibility.
Neither is cask whisky investment an opportunity only taken by older investors. A recent study found that 11 per cent of investors are aged between 25-34 and 17 per cent between 35-44.
Younger investors are more interested in tangible assets, as opposed to traditional investment funds, stocks and property.
If you’re interested in finding out more about whisky investment, get in touch today.