Selling whisky to buy whisky - is it always wrong?

[eelbrook]

There are many genuine whisky lovers who occasionally sell a bottle or two in order to fund the purchase of a long coveted expression. Is this wrong? After all, everyone involved gets the whisky that they want.

[Drame Blanche]

I try to limit myself to 20-25 closed bottles in my stash and when I go overboard because I see something interesting, I tend to sell 4-5 bottles to try and enforce myself some discipline.

All bottles I have are for drinking, between like £70 and £250, whether it's right or wrong selling that stuff is subjective, certainly I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. But to be honest, I also didn't feel guilty when I flipped the occasional bottle last year. I gave up not for ethical reasons, but because it takes more time than I want to spend on chasing flippable stuff.

[James T]

Not wrong at all in my eyes and good luck to anyone who sells a bottle or two to afford themselves something which may have been out of their whisky budgets reach.

[Graeme H]

If I was still in Scotland I would certainly use my knowledge of whisky and the fact that there is a number of specialist whisky auctions to sell whisky to fund my love of whisky. I will echo what James T said, good luck to any whisky lover who does.

[TheMaster]

Totally wrong in my view, but I have a very rigid outlook on it that I'm not going to change, sorry!

People can justify it all they like by saying "I'm buying whisky with the money I get", but it doesn't matter if your spending the money you get on whisky, shoes or giving it away to charity, it's not the gaining of the money or what you do with it that is the issue, it is the selling. Anyone who sells bottles for a profit on the secondary market is being an enabler to the inflated prices across the board, and are part of the problem. Which means that normal blokes like me have to pay higher prices to get quality whisky, because the distilleries put their prices up to get a bigger slice of the pie. It's the guy at the bottom that misses out, the normal consumer, not the big investors, and that's the problem, it's not a victimless crime.

rant over, and no offense ment, it's not directed at any individuals, just my wider view in general!

[arqueturus]

I certianly have no issue with it. I have no issue with people selling for profit either.

Market forces in action and this exists in all commodities, gold, stocks, property and so on. It's simply capitalism.

[thelastdram]

I started collecting And buying whisky for drinking and selling, I have never sold a bottle yet as I can’t seem to want to part with the bottles I’ve collected

I think if people want to buy to sell it’s their choice, the same choice that others have wether to buy the whisky or not from the sellers

People will always take the opportunity to make money where they can it’s life a don’t think you can blame people for trying to make money wether it’s to fund more whisky or to just make profit, if ur not buying at daft prices then it doesn’t effect you what others are doing

[eelbrook]

Posted twice

[eelbrook]

Always amuses me with football replica shirts. Every year, a slightly different new strip (or three) is released. Every year the cost is slightly higher. Every year fans complain at the greed of the clubs for hiking up the price . Yet every year fans then buy the new strip.

Ssme is true of whisky. Ultimately, it is hordes of buyers prepared to part with big bucks (whether via the primary or secondary market) that sustains price inflation.

[TheMaster]

But it 100% does effect us. It effects all who buy to drink. It causes booms and artificial inflation which means stocks get lower, the quality of whisky put out gets lower and pieces go up. This is one of the reasons it's costing you £100 for the latest NAS Ardbeg committee release, which is just average. In the day before it went crazy with speculators you were getting vintage committee release, NAS stuff like Day and Alligator that were £60 a bottle and outstanding.

In the short term it's the big boys that get the inflation; Ardbeg, Macallan, Balvenie. But long term other distilleries see the well over average price creeps and think "hey, I'll have a slice of that" and bump up too. E.g. Balblair and Glenfarclas.

Distilleries them start to specifically target speculators with daft whiskies in very limited numbers at ballot. They're not stupid, they want to make money and know what they are doing. People see it and think it's ok, it normalises it and then the core range prices shoot up again.

If people just bought whisky from shops, at retail price and refused to pay over the odds, this wouldn't happen, or it'd happen and a much slower/lower level.

End result? I have to pay £40 for a standard entry age statement and £120 for a Balblair 18.

It. Effects. Everyone.

[TheMaster]

It's exactly the same as house prices by the way. The investors snap up the houses, do them up and flip them for profit. The only people who can buy are are who have a house already with equity and can sell to buy the next one. The people who get stung are the first-time buyers who need somewhere to, at the bottom of the chain (buyers who buy yo drink) and the people in the middle who have to pay over the odds to get their bigger house. Who wins? Investors, builders and agents.

It's generally agreed that high HPI is mega bad. Same applies to whisky.

(Same thing is happening with rum too by the way, anything from Velier is pricing out drinkers......)

[arqueturus]

[TheMaster]

That's the sticking point isn't it. It's naturally worth what someone is prepared to pay. The problem is that what people are prepared to pay has been artificially pushed up. The intrinsic value of whisky based on its cost to produce, from source to shop, including a very acceptable mark up, is considerably lower than what people are paying. Look at how prices of entryevel whiskies has gone up, or the recent Balbalir increase their costs to produce hasn't increased (certainly not by the amount the price has gone up) nor are they're stock issues. It's gone up because they can get away with it, because people believe it's worth it and are prepared to pay more.


Sake with houses

Want to know how much your house is worth? Look at your building insurance for the rebuild costs.....It's not going to be anywhere near the "value" of your house, even if your account for the land cost. It's artificially pushed up by many things (low interest rates, higher lending ratios, help to buy etc).


Anything is only worth what someone will pay. But there gets to a pojt where it's artificially managed and it impacts the little guy. And there is always someone with deeper pockets.

[eelbrook]

I have noticed recently that prices for several premium whiskies (eg Macallan 30 and Hibiki 30) are more on retailers' shelves (even when sourced direct) than auction hammer prices.

[arqueturus]