The Costs of Whisky from your own Cask

My customers ask often, where they may buy filled whisky casks as an invenstment or for their own consumption. Certainly, there are casks for sale from well known distilleries, which do not want to cheat you like some unhonest Investment companies. But if you buy a cask, you should be fully aware of the following:

• You can not see at the beginning, if a cask produces good whisky after ten or 15 years. Only each tenth cask is so good, that you can use it for a superior single malt whisky. But you recognise this good cask only after some years of maturation. If you buy a recently filled cask, you play roulette with a prize chance of only 10%.

• Whisky in casks does not increase in value! Whisky is sold to prices, which change on a daily basis. These prices are under a constant pressure since long. The dying of the distilleries since decades tell a sad tale. Whole casks are traded by brokers to the blenders. You as a private have no access to this market.

• A litre of fresh spirit (malt whisky) costs one to one and a half British Pounds Sterling (EUR 1,25 to 2,25) in production. With this data a hogshead cask (250 litres) has a value of EUR 325,00 to EUR 550 (without profit). The storage and insurance costs per litre whisky and year are about ten cents. The rest of your money paid goes as profit to the distillery and the dealer.

• If you import the content of your hogshead to your country, duty has to be paid immediately. Germany has a duty of EUR 13,04 per litre of pure alcohol. The UK lies slightly above. Italy and France well below. Duty in Sweden is more than EUR 50,00 per litre pure alcohol. With approximately 150 litres of pure alcohol in your hoghshead, you have to pay duty about EUR 2.500,00!! In addition you have to pay your value added tax (VAT) on the price of the cask+duty. The VAT rate is 16% in Germany today. But most countries have higher VAT rates. This will add another EUR 500,00 to your bill. You should be prepared for this.

The following calculation with German data gives you a compilation about the costs. Please note, that this is only an approximate calculation. You should complete this calculation with your offer in question and add the duty and tax rates of your country.

*) estimated

But what bothers me most is the fact, that you end up with approximately 500 bottles from such a cask. You can not sell those bottles on a big scale. What is left to you is to give them away as a gift, or sell them for your own costs if you can. You may also use them to preserve fruits or you can drink on them until the end of your life.

Out of these reasons The Whisky Store does not sell whole casks.