Wine & Whiskies for the Fat Cat 1%. Gin & Vodka for the other 99?

Throw away your morals! Vice pays dividends. Or so a recent Bloomberg article summarising the findings of two investment studies claims. A look at investments back to 1900 shows that in the United States, the best place to put your money would have been in tobacco stocks. $1 invested at the dawn of the 20th Century would be worth $6.3 million today. In the UK the best of investments was that complimentary legal vice - alcohol. A £1 investment 115 years ago in alcoholic beverage firms would net you £243,152 now. 

Indeed, investors win with sin. 

But those winning on their booze brand bets today aren’t coming from people like you, the supporters of the Craft movement. The most extreme investments are coming from money well beyond the means of the 99%. Take a look at the latest wagers:    

1. Esteemed French estate Mouton Rothschild put a number of vintage cases and bottles of various sizes on auction in Hong Kong for the first time selling its lot for for HK$32m (£2.75 million) including a bottle from 1870 which sold for HK$392,000 (£33,650), a world record
2. a recent auction of 2013 vintage Napa wines raised $6 million (£3.86 million)
3. a Chicago auction of Bordeaux, Burgundies, and Napa wines brought in $4.9 million (£3.16 million)
4. the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed the world’s most expensive bottle of whisky - a 6-litre Lalique decanter of The Macallan - sold for the record price of $628,000 (£404,406)
5. the newly renovated Annandale Distillery in Scotland put its first cask filled in over 95 years on the market for £1 million in an effort to attract investors.  

Esteemed French estate Mouton Rothschild put a number of vintage cases and bottles of various sizes on auction in Hong Kong for the first time selling its lot for for HK$32m (£2.75 million) including a bottle from 1870 which sold for HK$392,000 (£33,650), a world record

a recent auction of 2013 vintage Napa wines raised $6 million (£3.86 million)

a Chicago auction of Bordeaux, Burgundies, and Napa wines brought in $4.9 million (£3.16 million)

the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed the world’s most expensive bottle of whisky - a 6-litre Lalique decanter of The Macallan - sold for the record price of $628,000 (£404,406)

the newly renovated Annandale Distillery in Scotland put its first cask filled in over 95 years on the market for £1 million in an effort to attract investors.  

Now, wine and whisky obviously age and basic principles of supply and demand dictate that the rarer a bottle gets the more its going to sell for. But are these investors ever going to do what the producers of this wine and whisky made the drinks for - drink it? Probably not. They’d have to swallow their investment (pun intended).

To the perceived comfort of the 99% drinkers, even the rarest of gins and their un-botanicaled sister spirit vodka will never be this rare. Or will they?

With the Wine and Spirits Trade Association’s Chief hailing the craft gin movement as “the next Scotch Whisky” maybe a few case here and there - particularly from limited edition runs - could achieve the status of selling at auction. 

So here’s our chance! Start hoarding cases of rare craft gins. In 115 years, you might be rich!