PAST, PRESENTS AND FUTURE After a miserable year it’s time to spread a little goodwill and cheer with your nearest and dearest, but will a bottled gold nest-egg be top of your shopping list?
I
magine waking on Christmas morning to discover an inspired Santa has left a bottle of Macallan 18-year-old single malt whisky instead of the usual socks and smellies. Imagine looking at the box, mentally savouring that perfectly-balanced amber nectar which has been matured over several years in both European and American sherry-seasoned oak casks to deliver a sweeter taste and character. Imagine the soft clink of ice cubes, the wonderful sensation as the liquid gold rolls across your palate and caresses your tonsils. Imagine all that … as that’s all you’re going to do. Imagine. Because if you’re shrewd, that box is going straight in the cupboard, unopened, hopefully to be joined annually by a few more to form a collection which could prove to be a nice little earner. Whisky, you see, is a hot little investment, particularly the Macallan, widely regarded
4
PROPERTY NEWS
© JOHNLEWIS.COM
© MINIMAUK.COM
as the Rolls Royce of single malts. Hang on to them long enough and they will turbo-charge your pension pot. Still sceptical? Well, a single bottle, bottled in 1983 after a 17-year maturation period in a sherry cask, can change hands for more than £6,000, while earlier this year a man who had been given a bottle by his father every year since his birth sold the lot for
