We recently purchased several boxes of whisky from a gentleman who had built up a small collection of from between the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s. We found a receipt from 1994 in one of the Glenmorangie 10 bottles and this receipt has given us an interesting insight in to the prices of whisky in 1994, and with a bit of help of one of our guild members, a Government statistician, we discovered some interesting facts about the cost of whisky:

The cost of a bottle of Glenmorangie 10 year old purchased on the 19^th of March 1994 was $69.70. Using the Consumers Price Index, Robin concluded that a ‘modern’ Glenmorangie “Original” (the replacement for the old 10 year old) would have to sell in March 2010 for $100.45 – the real surprise here is that the Glenmorangie “Original” actually retails in March 2010 for just $80!

A lot seems to be said about whisky in the ‘old days’, some think it was better, others say it was cheaper, but the more we look into it, the more we realise that we are in fact in what can be considered a golden age of whisky. Availability and diversity of single malt whisky has never been greater: a far bigger range of 10-15 year old standard bottlings, exclusive single-cask offerings from both distilleries and independant bottlers and various and quite differing expressions (peated, un-peated, cask finishes) coming from one distillery (Benriach is a good example of this).

At the end of the day, with so many different whiskies on available at prices which we feel offer great value for money (industry wide, not just at our shop), we can’t help but look back even 15 years ago with a great deal of satisfaction and delight at just how far the single malt whisky world has come.

Slainte,
The Whisky Galore Team.