How much should you spend on a bottle of “good” Scotch this Christmas for the dad or beloved uncle who is the whisky connoisseur of the family?

It's a more relevant question than ever as distillers and parent spirits companies set the sky as their limit, continually concocting limited-run batches that are even rarer, more exclusive and pricier than … ahem, the rare, exclusive and pricey ones that preceded them.

Tasmanian distilled Sullivans Cove Double Cask Whisky.

Not that there's anything wrong with the $50 bottle of Glenfiddich or Johnnie Walker you've always bought him, mind. But soaring sales figures at the super-premium end of the spirits world show that increasingly we're search for something a little bit special – read: more expensive – to turbocharge our gift-giving; or even what we're willing to spend on a gift for ourselves.

There are now a multitude of options in the $80 to $100 range, plenty around the $160 mark and an ever-increasing number soaring into the stratosphere beyond.