Sandeep Arora’s home near New Delhi, India, lies more than 8,000km from the heather-clad glens and islands where Scottish whisky is distilled. But the 47-year-old entrepreneur visits so often that the names of remote Highland and Hebridean villages trip off his tongue.

Through his company, Spiritual Luxury Living, Arora is developing the luxury market in his homeland with tastings, food pairings and a connoisseurs’ club.

“It’s a passion and a profession to me,” said Arora, whose personal collection includes a private vintage cask of 1973 Glenfiddich. “I’ve been involved in whisky for almost 10 years now which is possibly as long as the Indian luxury whisky market has been in existence.”

The high end of Scotch — as Scottish whisky is also known — is all about single malts, rather than blends.

Even further from the source of uisge beatha (Scottish Gaelic for "the water of life"), Hong Kong businesswoman Charlene Dawes also collects whisky for profit and pleasure. Her interest was fired by travelling in Japan and Taiwan, where whisky, and particularly single malts from Scotland, are very popular. “Drinking whisky used to be seen as something for older men, late at night. It was a little mysterious to me. But in Japan I realised the diversity of whisky,” she said.

As well as running her own whisky bar, the Angel’s Share in Hong Kong, 35-year-old Dawes hoards prized bottles, wrapping them in cling film to keep the labels pristine. “It’s a piece of history. If you look at whiskies from different eras, the packaging and label reflect the era and often there’s a story. For instance, I have a very old Macallan that unusually is peaty because in wartime there wasn’t coal so they used peat instead.”

Dawes considers herself fortunate to have begun collecting four years ago. “There were still old bottlings available. Now there’s a huge interest and things have got crazy.”

Most coveted

In 2012 and 2013, prices for the most covetable malts for investment purposes rose by 23% each year, according to Andy Simpson of Whisky Highland, in Rossshire, Scotland. Since 2008 he has been tracking values of the 1,000 top performing malts, known as IGS or “investment grade Scotch.”

“There’s real potential for growth because the target pool of older bottles is always decreasing,” said Simpson, 41. However, collecting and investing are two very distinct elements, he explained.

“Collectors try and buy every single release and variant from a single distillery. From an investor’s perspective this is suicide, because only 5% to 10% will increase in value.”

What to look for

Investors, he said, should look for single malts from iconic distilleries such as Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Glenfiddich and Glenlivet and from “silent” distilleries such as Port Ellen, Brora and Rosebank. “Silent” means they are closed.

“The last distillate from Port Ellen was in 1983," Simpson said "It’s a cult collector’s distillery. Every single bottle is increasing in value.”

He also recommends seeking out older whiskies — from the 1940s to 1980s. “The industry is running out of old stock,” he said. Heightened interest in whisky has led distilleries to market “special releases”, but these are only worthwhile if numbers are genuinely limited. For instance, in 2012 Balvenie released 88 bottles of 50-year-old at £20,000 ($33,790) each. These already fetch £25,000 to £30,000 ($42,240 to $50,690) per bottle.

On a more modest scale, a bottle of Ardbeg "Very Young" released in 2004 for £24.99 ($42.20) now sells for around 10 times more at auction.

Where to buy

Whisky is best viewed as a long-term investment over 10 to 20 years, said Simpson. His tip for the future is to consider older whiskies from the 1950s and 1960s from lesser known distilleries which aren't yet seen as “iconic” — for instance, Springbank and Clynelish.

He considers “distillery exclusives” worth purchasing but these are only available to visitors who turn up in person. Another way of snagging special offers is to enrol in online fan clubs such as Balvenie’s “Warehouse 24.”

The UK is the geographical centre for auctions but Bonhams holds sales in Hong Kong and New York, as well as in Edinburgh. Martin Green, Bonhams' head of whisky, said: “The market is as buoyant as it’s ever been and I’ve been doing sales for 25 years now.”

Bonhams has increased the frequency of auctions and interest is very strong from the Far East, Europe and the United States, he said.

Last June, for instance, a bottle of Glenfiddich 50-year-old went for £20,000 ($33,790) and a bottle of The Macallan Millennium 50-year-old in a Caithness glass decanter fetched £15,000 ($25,345).

“There’s no guarantee of growth but the trends are that things have been going up in value,” said Green. “In my experience the people who have made money have bought and waited for a decade before realising any capital from what they have originally bought.”

On-line auctioneers include scotchwhiskyauctions.com and whisky-onlineauctions.com.

How to store it

Once you’ve secured your liquid treasures, bottles must be stored upright because the strength of the alcohol can corrode the cork, said Simpson of Whisky Highland. To avoid evaporation, store at a constant room temperature of 19C to 20C. “They’re only worth anything if full and sealed.”

Whisky aficionado Marcel van Gils, who runs a dental practice near Hilversum in the Netherlands, has been collecting single malts since 1995 and now focuses on Laphroaig. While profitable in the past, the 60-year-old collector now buys whisky purely for drinking and for the love of its history. He and wife, Leonoor, once crossed the Channel to England to pick up just one rarity — a bottle of Laphroaig from the late 1920s or early 1930s.

The bottom line

Promising as current trends appear, van Gils advises caution. “When the stock markets went down, people were looking for new ways of investing their money and whisky prices surged to ridiculous heights. It’s a bubble.”

Other market watchers are more sanguine but a point on which all agree is that there is an increasing number of fakes around and buyers should be wary.

Meanwhile, the van Gils still travel to Scotland several times a year for tastings and festivals and to see friends. “When I first visited in 1992 I was blown away by the landscape, the people’s sense of humour and the great whisky. There’s so much atmosphere and history. Some people say that whisky is really for drinking, not collecting, but if it weren’t for collectors no-one would know what older whiskies taste like.”

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