A few days ago a student paid £2,200 for an uncorrupted bottle of whisky recovered from the sinking of the SS Politician off the Isle of Eriskay, made famous in Compton MacKenzie‘s Whisky Galore.

Brokers now predict that 2009 will see the first bottle of rare malt sold for £100,000. The current record is £40,000, paid for a 1942 Dalmore single malt.

The internet-based trading platform, World Whisky Index is showing that in the past month – yes, month – prices have risen by an average of 33%.

A 30 year-old bottle of Bowmore from Argyll’s Isle of Islay was bought for £165 and sold a month later for £390. This was a record increase of 137% in one month.

£20million per annum is the current estimate of investments in the UK alone into the rare single malt whisky market.

Sukhinder Singh, Director of the UK’s biggest whisky broker, Whisky Exchange, is quoted as saying: ‘We are busier than ever despite all the doom and gloom. The demand for top-end whisky is very strong. Whiskies are becoming more rare and therefore more valuable because 80% of the products we sell are actually being drunk. Whisky is a good investment because so many people are crazy about it and it never goes off. It’s safer than stocks and shares in the long term’.

Scottish distilleries have also seen a rise in the number of investors keen to buy casks of their whisky, even though 2% of their investment will evaporate each year – known as ‘the angel’s share‘.

Before you rush to the nearest off-licence to start getting your money out of the savings deposit that may shortly pay you nothing at all, the Scotch Whisky Association warns that ‘investment for resale is expensive and highly speculative and should not be entered into lightly’.

For Argyll has reported on the growth in whisky investment earlier, before its new acceleration in the current recession.

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