What to buy

[Jwilkie]

Hi im fairly new to the whisky collectors scene and looking for some suggestions on what to buy up first partly for drinking and a small investment ?
My first buys have been
Royal salute 21 y.o
Glendronach 15 y.o revival 2018
Laphroaig quater cask
Also bought two sets of the dreaded game of thrones sets
Thinking about adding the Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask as it seems to be highly rated.
Just wondering what everyones thoughts are of these buys ?

[Whisky Rogue]

Royal salute 21 y.o, Glendronach 15 y.o revival 2018, Laphroaig quater cask are ongoing bottlings to be drunk not really collectors whiskies. The Game of Thrones whiskies are certainly collectable given the cult following of the TV series.

All the whiskies you mention are good drinkers and the Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask is a good quality rum finished dram which most whisky drinkers will enjoy.

[asmazda]

I second what Whisky Rogue says, but I will elaborate that the Game of Thrones set would potentially be valuable only if you keep it as a complete set and preserve the packaging well.

If you really want to collect whisky with investment objective I would recommend Googling heavily instead of relying on this forum because it is complex topic with lots to learn.

At any rate, there are a few sort of "safe rules" to keep in mind:

1. Stick to single malt distilleries that get good prices at auctions. Here is a list from Whisky Advocate: http://whiskyadvocate.com/most-collectible-distilleries/ I would add to this Glendronach, Highland Park, and Yamazaki. Of course there are bunch of closed distilleries that are definitely collectibles, but arguably no longer good investments.

2. Stick to official bottling (not independent). So for example, I do not suggest you buy a "Signatory" bottling of Macallan; rather, you should get a "Macallan" bottling of Macallan.

3. Ideally the bottle you pick should meet all of these criteria: at least 18 years old, limited edition or have a vintage year printed on the label, cask strength is preferred, and good reviews. www.whiskyfun.com and www.whiskynotes.be are two ver popular reviewers and www.whiskybase.com is a good aggregator of reviews and tasting notes.

4. Keep all the original packaging... it's crazy what a "collector" cares about and how much that affects the price.

5. Store your whisky properly since these days you would most likely need to hang on to it for quite some time before it increases enough in value that it becomes "investment".

Since you specifically bought Glendronach you might want to try to snag their single cask releases, which fits all the 5 "safe rules" I mentioned. They do one run each year of various casks and I believe the next batch is about to release. With Glendronach specifically, I would recommend buying their whiskies distilled 1995 or earlier. After that they changed their production process (indirect steam heating instead of direct coal firing).

This site is great to read about on the history of each distiller and when they made various changes to their production process: https://www.maltmadness.com/whisky/index.html

[Jwilkie]

Thanks, got plenty to read up on ! Defo crack open one of the bottles whist im rrading thou . . . . . . .