A bit of fun buying a bottle of whisky

Keep_pedalling

retiringtoosoon said:

So you paid £80 for a sticker?

More like £50, the cheapest bottle they sell is £47.50

Choirgrl

In the early 2000s, when my then husband and I were splitting up, we had a number of Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottles that we divided between us. One of the bottles I took wasn’t opened. After about 15 years of it sitting on a shelf gathering dust, still unopened, I decided that I’d look to selling it. I was very pleasantly surprised to be given an estimate of up to £240, and it sold at auction for £350 (and in an auction with no seller’s commission). I don’t recall what it’s original price was, but can’t imagine it would have been more than £50. Other than being a numbered SMWS bottling, it was unremarkable.

Last year I happened to be at a newish distillery when it’s first bottling was released. I bought a bottle with an eye to it maybe being worth something in the future. For £70, it was a bit of fun and worst case I can drink it.

Emmia

GenieBoy said:

I only like minimum 18yo Whisky which is nice and smooth. None of that cheap mass produced stuff.

The age has little to do with the "smoothness" you know - much more important is the barrel(s) it was aged in...

Emmia

Fullers vintage ale is another example - £6 a bottle if bought the year of making (they're numbered bottles) which gets released a month or so before Christmas, and then a year on year price appreciation....

The 2019 edition (£6 a bottle in 2019) is currently going for £30 a bottle on the fullers site

https://www.fullersbrewery.co.uk/collections/vintage-ale

John464

What will the future demand for this be?
Yougov poll showed only 15% were very interested in the Coronation, mainly older people who will have passed away by the time you want to sell it.
(although looking at the media coverage you could be forgiven for thinking it was 100%)
In the meantime there will probably be similar products issued.
(Like the taxpayer funded portraits of King Charles that were sent free of charge to every local council to display, whether they wanted them or not)
So I can't see demand exceeding supply

guli

value goes to zero the moment you uncork the bottle

matty_bram

retiringtoosoon said:

So you paid £80 for a sticker?

Yeah but if you can sell that sticker for £500 in a few years then it's a worthwhile investment....

DullGreyGuy

Cloth_of_Gold said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Personally only thought about doing it once as a certain gin company does a limited special edition each year which can only be bought from then and its by raffle (I've entered 4 times and selected once). They routinely sell on the secondhand market at about 4-5 times their £65-£70 price ticket even for the ones released this year, the older ones are not massively more expensive than the new ones.

I did initially think I'd sit on it for a year and then sell it but curiosity got the better of me and I drank it  

And did it seem very special? I wouldn't drink gin neat so once you've mixed it with other things, whilst you can still tell a decent gin form a cheap and cheerful one, I don't think you'd notice any incredibly special subtleties that a very expensive one might have to justify the price.

I wouldnt drink it neat either but tend to have it stronger than the recommended 25% gin 75% tonic.

With these guys @cloth_of_gold the special editions have 1 additional ingredient from the normal botanicals. Each year is a different thing and in the one I had some japanese wood used in the whiskey industry. 

I would say the gin was slightly coloured and did have a slightly woody taste to it but fully accept that could be looking for what I know is supposed to be there. Certainly it wasnt as strong as Dyfi's Hibernation that spends a few months in ex-white port barrels. I certainly wouldnt say it was materially better than the non-special edition but then retail price is just 20% more than the RRP of the normal bottle so not a big premium and it was a little different. I would be disappointed if I'd paid the £330 that the internet currently shows them being resold at though. 

If I won another raffle (didnt this year) would I drink or sell it? Would probably do the same, sit on it for a bit and then drink it anyway. 

Cloth_of_Gold

DullGreyGuy said:

Cloth_of_Gold said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Personally only thought about doing it once as a certain gin company does a limited special edition each year which can only be bought from then and its by raffle (I've entered 4 times and selected once). They routinely sell on the secondhand market at about 4-5 times their £65-£70 price ticket even for the ones released this year, the older ones are not massively more expensive than the new ones.

I did initially think I'd sit on it for a year and then sell it but curiosity got the better of me and I drank it  

And did it seem very special? I wouldn't drink gin neat so once you've mixed it with other things, whilst you can still tell a decent gin form a cheap and cheerful one, I don't think you'd notice any incredibly special subtleties that a very expensive one might have to justify the price.

I wouldnt drink it neat either but tend to have it stronger than the recommended 25% gin 75% tonic.

With these guys @cloth_of_gold the special editions have 1 additional ingredient from the normal botanicals. Each year is a different thing and in the one I had some japanese wood used in the whiskey industry. 

I would say the gin was slightly coloured and did have a slightly woody taste to it but fully accept that could be looking for what I know is supposed to be there. Certainly it wasnt as strong as Dyfi's Hibernation that spends a few months in ex-white port barrels. I certainly wouldnt say it was materially better than the non-special edition but then retail price is just 20% more than the RRP of the normal bottle so not a big premium and it was a little different. I would be disappointed if I'd paid the £330 that the internet currently shows them being resold at though. 

If I won another raffle (didnt this year) would I drink or sell it? Would probably do the same, sit on it for a bit and then drink it anyway. 

Thanks - that's interesting. I agree on the 25%/75% ratio - definitely not how I have it either.

 I reently bought a bottle of Clean Co alcohol-free 'gin' to see what it was like. I tried a spoonful neat, out of interest, and it tasted very watery and not too pleasant, but that's not how it's meant to be drunk of course. Once I'd added tonic, despite being very generous with the 'gin', I could barely taste it; I shan't be buying any more.

Malthusian

DullGreyGuy said:
I would say the gin was slightly coloured and did have a slightly woody taste to it but fully accept that could be looking for what I know is supposed to be there. 

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The presentation and anticipation are part of the experience. Part of the reason people think that expensive wines and spirits are better is because they take more time over them. If every sip costs £5 then you're damn well going to sip it little by little and pay attention to every last flavour note, instead of the TV or the inane chatter around the table. Unless you're truly debauched. (I've never spent more than £50 on a bottle, just to be clear.)
I struggle to get my head around paying £300+ for a bottle of gin, unless it's the one bottle of gin that gives you superpowers. The cynic in me wonders if distilleries ever indulge in wash trading, i.e. buying their unsold stock from themselves at ludicrous prices in order to make it appear as if it's something that people do. 

Cloth_of_Gold said:

Thanks - that's interesting. I agree on the 25%/75% ratio - definitely not how I have it either.

 I reently bought a bottle of Clean Co alcohol-free 'gin' to see what it was like. I tried a spoonful neat, out of interest, and it tasted very watery and not too pleasant, but that's not how it's meant to be drunk of course. Once I'd added tonic, despite being very generous with the 'gin', I could barely taste it; I shan't be buying any more.

Seedlip Spice and Seedlip Grove are the only alcohol-free "spirits" I've found worth wasting a can of tonic water on, and I've tried quite a few. I rarely bother with them now but my spouse still likes them. (My capacity to pretend that they taste of anything but slightly differently flavoured tonic water ended soon after our child was born.)
The worst is Three Spirit which is basically vinegar mixed with syrup.