whisky industry

This article aims to estimate the effect of expert assessments on the prices for single malt Scotch whiskies on the investment market. Our results obtained using an original dataset combining data from Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible and a web trading platform specializing in whisky investment show that the quality rating is not a powerful predictor of investor ask prices, especially when controlling for distillery and bottler reputation. This finding suggests that although the Murray score may embed information of use to unsophisticated investors, its effect on price can be outperformed by a detailed knowledge of the whisky industry.

This article examines the main determinants of differences in ask prices set by investors for single malt whiskies from Islay in Scotland using an original dataset collected from a web trading platform specializing in whisky investment. We find strong evidence that the vintage age (the number of years between the distillation date and the data collection date) positively affects investor asking prices. More precisely, given that the characteristics of whisky, unlike wine, do not change over time once bottled, we disentangle the vintage age effect by subdividing the vintage age into whisky age (the time spent in the cask) and bottle age (the time spent in the bottle). Our results show that whisky age has a more pronounced impact (8.9% per year on average) than bottle age (6.7%). Other findings include the significant influence of distillery reputation, with a moderating effect for independent bottling (i.e., not in-house by the distiller itself) and a positive impact for cask strength whiskies compared to diluted ones. (JEL Classifications: G11, L15, Q11)

This paper examines the impact that ask prices and transaction prices have on vintage whisky hedonic price estimates, following a recent paper by Moroz and Pecchioli, who focus solely on ask prices. In general, the results suggest that whisky price estimates are independent of prices employed, with the main differences relating to the economic impact of certain variables. More precisely, bottle owners tend to overestimate the effect of some whisky characteristics (bottle age, non-dilution of the whisky) on price, which may be explained by the youth of the whisky investor market.

Using an original dataset hand collected on an online trading platform specialized in whisky investment, this article aims to estimate the main determinants of price differences for whiskies. We find strong evidence that distiller's reputation, age of whisky and vintage affect positively the price. Other findings include a negative effect for independent bottling (i.e. not in-house by the distiller) and a positive "collector" effect for bottles identified as "extremely rare" by the website.