Tonight at Bonham’s Auction Hong Kong a world record price was achieved for a single bottle of Japanese whisky. The bottling, a Karuizawa 1960 52YO Cask #5627 one of 41 bottles. Price with buyers premium was approximately US118,000, Euro105,000, GBP77,000. Original Price was GBP12,500 back in 2013. Also as reported in a recent post, an almost complete collection of Ichiro’s Card series was up for sale. This lot sold with buyers premium for approximately USD490,000, Euro436,000, GBP319,000. Obviously this is also a record for a single combined lot of Japanese whisky. I reckon that they would have cost no more than around USD10,000 if you were lucky to buy them all at retail prices. Share markets in turmoil…… seems at least for now we have a new ‘investment’ winner, or like gold, a bulwark during hard economic times?
The Japanese Whisky Review
By Dramtastic Est 2012
Hi, Brian
My bottles of the new NAS Yoichi & Miyagikyo arrived today & I am now trying the latter.
I’m enjoying it – sweet malt with some dried fruit, floral & herbaceous characters finishing long with some spicy, drying oak on the finish.
Seems young, but with some older material cleverly & carefully blended in.
Very easy to pour another dram.
For not a lot of money this is easy to recommend.
Thanks Alan. I liked the old NAS 500ml bottlings at their price point so my feeling is that these will be at least as good. Hope so anyway as I’ve ordered 4 bottles of each : )
I tried the new Chita grain last night – I found it pleasant & well made but a bit bland – needs more time in oak.
I didn’t think it was as good as the Nikka Coffey grain & not a patch on the Chita 12yo.
Still, at its price point it’s an enjoyable whisky – no complaints!
Just had my first dram Alan. Agree the Nikka Coffey Grain is superior. The nose of the Chita holds promise that the palate can’t match. Still early days so I will give it some time. The Miyagikyo NAS is a light nutty/floral number with some sweet spices. The Yoichi NAS is not so dissimilar to the Miyagikyo so in that regards a bit of a disappointment. Would prefer that it had the balanced peaty/smokiness usually found in the 10/12/15 year old. It’s not a bad whisky just not very Yoichi so far. Will see how they all develop.
These prices are totally nuts!
Some of the closed bottles I have could now fund my retirement.
A shame that nobody can now afford to drink these liquid treasures.
As an aside, I have ordered some of the new NAS Yoichi & Miyagikyo.
If they are any good, I’ll buy some more, because they are not hideously expensive.
Hi Alan,
I’ve ordered the same bottles and a bottle of the NAS Chita Grain. I quite liked the 500ml NAS Yoichi and Miyagikyo and am actually hoping the new bottlings are even better. Not such great value are the Yoichi NAS Heavily Peated and Miyagikyo NAS Sherry Cask which are about 600 bucks a bottle on the resell market in Japan. Crazy!
Stefan On Nonjatta seems to think the new NAS Yoichi & Miyagikyo are pretty good – I sure hope they are.
I’ll be buying some of the Chita as well.
My brother is coming to Australia next month & he found me a couple of Taketsuru 17yo at a supermarket for Y5300 each!
As for the 2 limited releases – they’ve got to be f***ing joking!
I hear ya on the 2 limited releases brother and I guarantee they sure as shit aren’t that good!!
I keep seeing the 21yo OB Zawa’s from 1965/66/67 go for equally the same price of a very good car at this auction. You must be happy with that – have you put yours away in the safe?
Well a 65 sold and a 67 didn’t at this auction. All my stuff is insured and I’m happy I was smart enough to start keeping some bottles closed for the last few years. Very good cars must be cheaper in Japan!
what the hell, that is insane!
I watched the live feed Bret and will report further on my observations of the auction as a whole. It was certainly and eye opener!
Amazing.
Would be nice if you could shed some light as to how it went and who are the buyers?
All i heard is the room was packed.
Well I will be giving some general observations as I was only watching the live feed and the only person the camera is on is the auctioneer. I can the mix of auction bidders/winners were in the room, online and on the phone.
Just found this great site! Thanks for doing it.
So, I saw the Japanese news (NHK World) interest segment about the popularity of Nippon whisky, especially in Hong Kong. They mentioned the winning bidder was from either Indonesia or Malaysia (sorry, it’s been a while).
Thank Julius, I had assumed it was someone from either HK or mainland China.
Cheers
Brian