What’s in a whisky carton?

That is of course a simple question; there’s a bottle of whisky in a whisky carton.

However, there can also be a lot of value / money in the whisky carton itself.

We were recently asked by a very good customer to source a fairly rare bottle of whisky for him. We searched our usual sources and located a bottle for him. The bottle came to us to be sent on to our customer.

Upon opening the box, we found the whisky carton, whilst intact, to be in slightly less than perfect condition.

This was a bottle that was sold in limited quantities the early 2000‘s for only a year or so. It is therefore, a pretty rare expression today. We photographed the bottle and carton for our own records and sent it off to our customer – very well packed in multiple layers of bubblewrap. We were under the impression this bottle was for consumption and not collection and were therefore not too worried about the not quite perfect condition of the whisky carton. We were wrong!

whisky cartonUpon receiving the package, our customer contacted us to say the whisky carton was not quite  in the condition he’d hope for, as it was to add to his collection. He is a great customer with a wide and varied taste in whiskies and we were sorry to have fallen just short of his expectations here. However, although he is fastidious with his whiskies, he wholly accepted that a whisky carton that had been moved around for 15 or so years, was always going to be a little bit less than perfect.

In the event, he is very happy with the whisky and its carton, which now sits in his large collection alongside some others who are slightly better dressed.

And so… if you have a whisky that has been “knocking about” your house for a few years, pay care and attention to the whisky carton as well as the whisky, for a poor carton could seriously dent the worth of the whisky.

If you don’t have a nice whisky in a nice whisky carton; find one here!