The Cask Index is Spirit & Cask's proprietary quarterly tracking of auction prices for collectible whisky, cognac, and rum, compiled from public saleroom data. Headlines are free; the full dataset is gated behind email capture for The Angel's Share.

Methodology

• Sources: published results from the major salerooms, including Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams, supplemented by established specialist whisky and spirits auction houses.
• What is tracked: hammer results for named collectible bottlings and casks across whisky, cognac, and rum, with lot-level provenance and the auctioneer's published terms.
• What is not tracked: private sales, dealer asking prices, and any result the house does not publish.
• Limits: auction results reflect what two bidders would pay on one day, not a valuation. Currency is reported as published by the house. Buyer premium treatment follows the house's published terms. The Index describes the market; it is not investment advice.

The first reading

The inaugural reading describes the auction year behind it, anchored to verified headline results from the published record:

Sale	Result
Sotheby's, The Nightcap	$14.3m total
Christie's, Karuizawa casks	£4.25m for two casks
Sotheby's, Japanese single bottle	$625,000
Distillers One of One	£2.9m, a charity auction record

Qualitatively: the year belonged to rarity with a story. Closed Japanese distilleries set the ceiling, single casks outperformed blended lots, and charity salerooms rewrote what collectors will pay in public. Whisky dominated the top lots; cognac's records came from vintage and historic bottlings rather than current releases. The full lot-level data behind this reading is available to subscribers.

Get the full dataset

The complete Cask Index tables, with lot-level results and our quarterly commentary, go to subscribers of The Angel's Share. Subscribe below to receive the first full release.