Happy New Year!

Hopefully you’ve had a nice break over Christmas and New Year and are looking forward to the year ahead. At the beginning of December I received my approvals as an Authorised Customs & Excise Warehousekeeper, with my own approved warehouse. This offers greater potential to sell casks and bottles to customers outside the UK, as it is relatively straightforward to ship alcohol between countries when you have your own warehouse.

  
20 yo Islay Malt with Christmas Label. 21yo available now.
  
 Customers not wanting an entire cask can also now opt to buy whisky from my bottled stock range, which is ever expanding or in a 60 litre drum for certain whiskies. With these additions to my business, I’m looking forward to another exciting year!

Complications

The above approvals might not seem like much to get excited about, but with applications to be a Registered Owner, a Duty Representative, an Excise Warehousekeeper with an Approved Excise Warehouse, receive a Movement Guarantee Bond and most recently, extend the list of warehouses that I can store whisky in— it can be difficult to find time to actually sell the product!

An example of red tape in action: to own casks in a specific distillery’s warehouse, I must be approved by HMRC. In order to gain approval, HMRC require that I ask the warehouse to confirm “if I should gain approval from HMRC, will you permit me to own goods in your warehouse?”, to which they reply “We cannot confirm anything until HMRC approve you to store goods in our warehouse.” An impossible system!
 
Casks Available Now

As the new year begins, I’ll be bringing in new stock, with increasing frequency. Casks which have been available for some time on my website are continuing to mature in the warehouse, and unfortunately some prices will increase on the anniversary of the date of distillation.

Bottles Available Now

www.whiskybroker.co.uk/acatalog/shophome.html

On special offer for January only is 17yo Glen Grant, 55% vol., 70cl bottles, for only £35. A limited number of about 170 bottles each of 1968 Tomintoul and 1974 Strathmill will be coming in January. The Tomintoul should be around £60 with the Strathmill around £50. I should also be bottling one of the 20yo Bunnahabhain and a Port Dundas when it turns 21 years old on 31st January (This whisky is available in shops at around £110 while my anticipated price is closer to £40).

Martin Armstrong
www.whiskybroker.co.uk
info@whiskybroker.co.uk