VCL Vintners’ stance on Whisky in 2020 and beyond

There continues to be huge and well-founded optimism for the performance of whisky for 2020 and indeed the coming decades. With an ever increasing consumer demand and production levels not nearly high enough to quench investors’ thirst, whisky looks set to again dominate the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index.

Here at VCL, we are focussed on forging deeper relationships in China where interest in whisky has grown by 22% over the past three years and direct exports of whisky to China from the UK has increased eight-fold over the past two decades. Specifically, we are considering auctioning some of the most highly sought after Macallan casks known to man in either Shanghai or Hong Kong.

In addition, we will continue to develop our presence in the US with the possibility of a 50 year Glenlivet bottling of one of our rarest casks on the cards. This may be followed by a bottling of our 47 year Caperdonich and one of our 40 year old Bowmores.

Talking of the US, there have been a few bumps in the road recently, chief amongst them being the US importation tax on single malt. However, the Scotch whisky community is now unifying in its demands for the European Union to resolve its export tariff row with the United States and we are both hopeful and optimistic that it will be removed by the end of Q2 2020. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already vowed to remove tariffs on US whiskey once the UK leaves the EU so it’s definitely looks promising. As they say in the Highlands, “today’s rain is tomorrow’s whisky”.