The growing gap between supply and demand for whiskey has claimed another victim – so now might be the time to start collecting unicorn whiskies.
Asahi Brewery announced this week that it would discontinue four of its prestigious Nikka Taketsuru whiskies – the Pure Malt 17-, 21- and 25-year-old expressions and the no-age-statement (NAS) Pure Malt – and replace them with a different variant of the NAS bottling.
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Asahi's international business development manager Emiko Kaji said the whiskies would go from all markets.
"We have been restructuring our portfolio in the past several years to sharpen our brand identify and to secure sustainable growth. Delisting above mentioned expressions is a part of our strategic planning process and will be executed in all markets. The products to be discontinued have been highly allocated and the availability depends on the market."
This is the latest indication of how tight Japanese whisky supplies are. In 2018, Suntory announced it was discontinuing its popular Hibiki 17-year-old bottling due to a lack of sufficiently aged spirit (although that discontinuation does not appear to have actually happened). That led to a doubling in the average retail price in the space of 18 months, from $303 at the time of the announcement to $626 in November last year; it currently stands at $637. The company also announced cutbacks for its Hakushu, Chita and Shirokaku brands.
The Taketsuru range is an important one for Nikka. It is named for the company's founder, Masataka Taketsuru, who famously learned the art of distilling in Scotland before returning to Japan – with Scottish wife in tow – to kick-start the Japanese whisky industry. The Pure Malt version was named Japanese whisky of the year last year by writer Jim Murray.
That whisky currently has an average global ex-tax retail price of $78, although you can pick it up for around $47 in Italy, or less than $60 at Total Wine & More or Remedy Wines & Spirits in Glendale. We've got around 500 listings for it worldwide.
The Taketsuru 17 has been rising steadily in price across the past five years, and its average global retail price jumped from $266 in December to its current level of around $335 (it literally changes by the minute and it's likely to become even more volatile after we publish this story). That's not exactly chump change, but several Total Wine outlets have it for less than $200 a bottle, ex-tax. Globally, we have around 140 offers for it.
The Taketsuru 21 has a global average price of around $560, ranging from a surprisingly affordable $240 in Denver to an altogether more sobering $1900 in Hong Kong. Overall, we have around 125 offers worldwide. The average price has almost quadrupled in the past five years, growing from just $154 a bottle in January 2015. In the past month alone, it has risen by more than $100 a bottle, from $447.
The Taketsuru 25, meanwhile, is even rarer, with just one offer in the US and five in the UK. Overall, we have 30 offers, mostly situated in Hong Kong. The average price is around the $2500 mark, a reflection of the whisky's rarity. That average has tripled in the past five years (from $850 in January, 2015), with a recent sharp rise of almost $600 since the end of December.
Obviously, past performance is no guarantee of future returns – and we make no claims to offer financial or investment advice – but the whisk(e)y market is in such rude health currently that rare bottlings are changing hands for silly money.
If you're a whiskey hunter, it might be time to turn your sights to the latest unicorn on the range.
