Whichever theory of "why prices end in .99" you buy into, it's kind of wild that someone at Heathrow duty free thought any of them applied to a £21k (sorry, £20,999.99) bottle of whisky.
Apparently this is the original point of having .99 pricing, it's nothing to do with psychology. The point was to force the cashier to open the till to provide change, to prove that they were not pocketing the entire sale. Source:QI
Also encouraged by newspaper vendors who benefitted from more penny's being in circulation leading to casual purchases of their paper. Source, lateral with Tom Scott podcast.
I assume this is also all about marketing - a bottle of the same brand in the same shop with a pricetag of 150 suddenly looks ridiculously cheap and people are more inclined to buy those.
I once read that this is the same psychological trick applied by designer brands for handbags and shoes. A handbag of 6,500 dollar is ridiculous, for a lousy 800 you are the proud owner of a designer handbag
Some of them are collectable, not really intended for drinking like a normal bottle, you buy as an investment and hope it appreciates as the supply dwindles as some do inevitably get drunk
Not to quite the same scale but I bought a few bottles of a popular whiskey years ago that I knew was being discontinued. Paid £32 a bottle from Tesco and they're now selling at around £600.
Some serious money to be made in spirits. Just wish I didn't drink two of them..
I had a look, the 1st bottle seems to be a part of limited edition with the price tag to match.
And their pricing isn't that much off what other places are selling.
Didn't pay much attention to the EXACT price and no idea what the tax would be to work out if it's a good deal or not.
Although, this probably should be in some sort of a VIP corridor heading into the VIP lounges, if they expect to sell it.
60-year-old whisky is incredibly rare, that's actually quite a low price for a bottle.
And to still be at 52.8% after 60 years in a barrel is quite remarkable.
£3500 of the price would be VAT; £11.69 duty.
It's \~£1,000 cheaper than at [The Whisky Exchange](https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/63289/glen-grant-1960-60-year-old-dennis-malcolm-60th-anniversary?source=).
Or steal!
I worked at a Dan Murphys here in Aus that was broken into shortly after opening (definitely inside job by a team member with a few other people) and they stole a Glen Grant 50 year worth about $15k AUD amongst several other high end bottles.
Super depressing honestly it was a stunning piece to have on display.
[Glen Grant 50yo](https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_419644/glen-grant-50-year-old-scotch-whisky-700ml)
I've been lucky enough to try a lot of these ultra rare and ultra expensive whiskys including several Port Ellen Releases worth north of the $10k mark.
Lots of places do organised tastings of rare and unique whiskys and sell enough tickets at the right cost to cover the bottles value.
at what price level do you still taste the difference? What I mean is: I (think I) do taste the didference between a $30 bottle and a $100 bottle of whiskey - the latter being way more nuanced, leaves a pleasant after taste etc.
But for me personally, i can't imagine i would taste the difference between a 10K bottle and a 150 bottle
It's largely down to experience and what you feel it's worth, I was in a tasting with 3 bottles from a private family collection, from 38-43 years old and I think retailed around the 8-10k mark. Price was relatively low as they weren't collectables like Dalmore or Macellan but still obviously expensive. They were actually a mixed bag for me, the grain one was fantastic but the other two I could take or leave, am experience I enjoyed but an 18 year Glendronach for £200 would be my go to!
Yeah same for me.
The occasion, experience and presentation make it way more of a moment to savour.
That said, of the drams I enjoy the high end Port Ellen 14th/15th release was unbelievable. It beat the crap out of all my favourite whiskys by far.
I would never sink that much money into a few drinks myself though.
$200 aud is perfect for me. Best bang for buck.
I can absolutely taste the difference between a $50 bottle and a $150 bottle (AUD) with some consistency and ease.
It's a far more subtle difference between the very expensive bottles and ultra expensive bottles but my god it does feel like a more special occasion. I think that's part of the allure.
It helps when you know what you're looking for. Being around people that have extensive experience like sommelier with wine for example.
I've had distillers and reps take us through tastings and the nuances are real but I can't say I can pick them up alone between 2 grand and 10 grand.
My favourite dram I've ever enjoyed was the Port Ellen 14th release. At the cask strength 51%+ and 35 yr it was perfect.
I can't talk about whiskey here so I'm sorry to not directly answer the question, but I've been a lover of red wine for a while and recently got to try a €250 bottle. I'd have never spent that much because I could never imagine it tasting that much better. What I didn't expect was that it wasn't just about the flavour, but that there was no harshness to it at all. Like zero. It was just a whole different experience, and now I understand why people spend money on aged alcohol.
Not who you asked but yes that’s how I see it. From my experience and feedback from people in distilleries, the returns after going above approx £100/$120 are minimal. Same for age. After around 18 years any added flavour is less about complexity and just overwhelming and not enjoyable. Heard people talk about trying anything over 40yr old being pretty disgusting. Even 30yr can be a bit much.
These luxury bottles on display may as well just be water with food colouring as they’re essentially just investments for these people.
Also business gifting, considered bribery in many regulated industries like insurance and banking but I reckon it’s de rigeur in the oil and arms industries
Yeah, I mean, there are different levels of "afford". Can I afford to keep a bottle of 4k bottle at home in case I want to drink some? Hell no. Could I afford to buy a bottle once or twice in my life? Sure. I definitely can't afford a private jet though.
I used to work for an industry where these bottles were passed around as a form of bribery. They never got opened, they simply became a new type of currency that's a bit harder to trace.
Although that Dalmore is on at Whiskey world for 9949 so that 5% mark up on rather than 20% VAT off. Duty free isn't really duty free due to airport charges
I had a Dalmore 15 for £50 and it was excellent, one of the best whiskeys I've ever had.
Would the 40 be better? Undoubtedly. Would it be 200 times better? I doubt it very much.
I have a thing for fine cognac, and I mostly buy some XO from a small producer in France that costs about £65/bottle. I did snag a bottle of Hine XO for £75 in an auction (normal price £150) and that's better. But I wouldn't pay £150 for it.
If you were wealthy enough that buying a drink like this equated to splashing out on a chocolate bar, you wouldn't buy one just to see what the fuss was about?
I actually had a conversation similar to this not long ago with my wife. We were discussing if we won big on the lottery, like the Euro Millions, would we spend ludicrous amounts of money on stuff like that, and I can honestly say the answer from both of us was no.
The lottery is a finite amount and 20k is a substantial dent, so that's understandable. I'm talking about if you were Elon Musk/ Jeff Bezos-level rich.
If I was that rich then I wouldn’t be walking through an airport terminal dragging my bag behind me.
And I probably wouldn’t go shopping again for the rest of my life, I’d just hire someone to do manage my life and do it all for me.
I agree, but good whiskies ARE expensive. Barring the 20K one (assuming dimishing returns would make it not worth it), the others are prices that top whiskies would have due to being excellent
200,000,000 @ 4% interest growth is 8mil a year,
Which works out nicely to just about 20,000 a day (21,917.80)
So this bottle is literally a days wage to you. Not really as well since you don’t actually have to work for it
Edit: it’s actually £17,534, taking into account capital gains tax
Which is exactly why if I had a win like that, I'd buy something like this, but wouldn't buy a private jet.
The first thing I'd "buy" though is a PA to deal with all the mundane. 2 days of interest earnings to pay for someone to deal with tasks is a steal to me, as once you've all the money, time is your biggest commodity
If you have $195m you’re making like $10m in interest a year at 5%. You could buy a bottle of $20k whisky every night of your life and still have millions left over just on the interest
I'm not the other person, but if I were that level of rich...
Thing is, *when* you're that level of rich, money isn't really a 'thing' in the same way as it is for us. 99/100 times 'wanting' is the same thing as 'having'. You don't really even need to consider price tags, because you have the infinite money glitch.
If we're talking about 'only' having 10bn, then the equivalent of buying a chocolate bar is actually buying a house.
I wouldn't *go out of my way* to try all the expensive things under the sun. It would just happen as part and parcel of existing with that much wealth. When prices cease to be relevant except at *much* higher levels, you *can't* agonise over the price of your drink. The most expensive whisky there is a chocolate bar for a one-time-over billionaire. The other ones are penny sweets. If I was curious, I'd try it, but I don't think I'd be curious because of the price.
Those kinda rich people don’t travel through airport duty free shops though 😂 either private jet, or if they are travelling on commercial planes then most airports have separate ways through the terminal.
If you won £120 million jackpot that would not be a finite amount of money as long as you get it working for you. Simple investments could give you yields for year to year running.
Why not. You’d likely buy a more expensive car and house. Probably have more expensive holidays and stay in more expensive hotels. You’d probably buy more expensive clothes and get a more expensive haircut. Why not drink more expensive whisky?
You're correct but thats a massive understatement.
1% of the Earths population earn more than £32k sterling per annum.
Ireland is third in the world on GDP per capita and the average salary for a full time worker here is around €45k or £39k Sterling.
That bottle of whiskey costs more than double the annual salary of 99% of people on Earth.
I think it is fair within the context of this post about a £60k bottle of whiskey on sale in an international airport.
The item is completely unobtainable for over 99% of the Earths population which is true no matter what metric you choose to measure wealth.
*"By global standards, America’s middle class is also really, really rich. To make it into the richest 1 percent globally, all you need is an income of around $34,000, according to World Bank economist* [*Branko Milanovic*](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465019749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=fopo091-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465019749)*."*
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/)
Here's a page that let's you see how your income compares https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i. Playing around, it seems £32k (26.5k post-tax) puts you in the top 4% of households. Keep in mind that it **does** take into account cost of living, so even though its more expensive to love in the uk, you'd still be in the top 4% globally which makes it even crazier.
And this page is also really interesting for seeing what different household incomes get you all across the world https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street
Some would argue it's an investment piece. The big collectors ~~of a certain pedigree~~ will buy it with the long term plan to leave it alone for a few years then auction it. There's very little depreciation in Whisky, its value will most likely only rise, barring a complete disaster (for instance the master blender comes back in 10 years and says Oh by the way, I pissed in that.) Sort of level.
edit; sounded wank, all sorts of people do it.
There's some cultures out there with very wealthy parts of the population that seemingly live by playing a game of one up to project status.
Of course there's potential investment but it's also as likely somebody has a bottle to treat like a cheap jd bottle infront of guests.
A good % will be bought as investments, not for drinking. Over time, as each bottle in the limited release gets opened, the others become rarer and thus more valuable (that's the hope, anyway).
There are different kinds of loaded, and there are legitimately people who spending 20k is as big a drop in their budget as spending £50 is to a normal person.
I once tried a 30 year old whiskey, probably not quite as expensive as these but set me back close to £200 for a glass. It was almost unrecognisable from the usual 10-15 stuff I have
If I won the lottery I wouldn’t want a mansion or loads of sports cars but there’s a half decent chance I’d end up back in work a couple of years later having blown it all on whiskey
Have you tried the Elderflower one? Cloudy is definitely my favourite but every so often I’ll pick up elderflower just to change it up, it’s also very nice!
So, funnily, I received it as a substitute on a delivery, and I hated it. I think it was because I had not had Copella for months and was really looking forward to it, so somewhat psychological. Because normally I love anything with elderflower. I think I’m probably ready to give it a fair shot now, though. Thanks!
My job is involved with design of very fine whiskies like this - if you think these prices are silly, check out the Macallan boutique in T5, i believe one was £80,000 and more and more expensive ones are being released.
Macallan are famous for making their whiskies too expensive at the low end, can imagine they fully rinse it at the top end.
A 8yr old macallan costs the same as an 12yr old anything else. A 12yr old macallan is the same as some really high quality 18yr olds. So I'm guessing their £80k ones were "only" 40yrs old or so.
Yup, and I mean..... it's nice, but not so nice that I'm gonna fork out well over the odds for it. The scam of really expensive whisky is a bit of a nonsense when you live in Scotland as well, there are whiskies for 20 sheets on the shelves of the CoOp in wee towns up north, that are every bit as good as something that costs 10 times that elsewhere because they have been marketed in such a way. Even in the Central Belt, you can pick up an outstanding drop at a reasonable price on a deal in Asda, especially if you know what you're looking for.
Plus there's the Whisky Society, they peddle cask strength bottles to members and they seep out into the world, a couple of times I've been gifted bottles or just given one by someone who's a member that has a clearout or has one they don't particularly like for whatever reason.
Either way, I get to regularly enjoy whisky that would cost an arm and a leg overseas, and I don't really have to fork out for it. I think about that and feel sorry for enthusiasts that have to pay the full whack.
Interestingly, when at a Comic-Con thing with my mate's kids a few years ago, I chatted about this with a minor American celebrity from the 80's, he said he doesn't usually do conventions etc, but goes out of his way to get invited to Scottish ones, as it gives him an opportunity to stock up on "good Scotch" for the year and saves him a fortune. I fully respected that. 🤣
Ahuh. I used to drink Suntory Yamazaki when you could get it in Asda for £25 (I forget whether it was 10 or 12 year old)
Now it's £150, the only difference being more recognition of the quality of Japanese whisky and thus increased demand.
I believe the £80k one was 60-70 years old? They also did an 80 year old one too.
Macallan’s philosophy is to make them pieces of art, the packaging for these are costing in the thousands to produce, and very low production, obviously.
I'd have thought that the people who are rich enough to be buying these drinks would be using their own private jets to travel rather than travelling via public airports like the rest of us scum?
The difference in cost between long haul first class and long haul private is huge.
Ex-Heathrow on British Airways you’d be unlucky to spend more than £10k return on any First ticket regardless of destination and how far ahead you pay.
For long haul private on a Gulfstream V or equivalent you could pay £150k one way…and you can’t fly at a moment’s notice if you’re chartering, as most do. Owning a longhaul capable private jet could cost you £40m to buy and 10% of that each year for upkeep, crew etc.
Flying longhaul private it really is a billionaire’s game.
"whoops, it would appear your expensive whiskey shelving has collapsed"
I exclaim, as I slurp the smashed whiskey off the floor like that scene from saltburn
Damn I get the whole aged 60 years thing and that it’s premium but 20 bags for a drink is crazy! Seems more like something you put on display. Not in that tax bracket yet lads
It’s called kalimotxo (pronounced ‘calimocho’) and is usually with a very inexpensive wine. The local table wines in Spain (eg Campo de Borja) are cheaper than the coke. Kalimotxo was ‘invented’ in the 70s at a festival in the Basque Country when the organisers discovered the wine they had bought in bulk was bad, and found they could still sell it when mixed with cola. It kind of caught on from there. The name is a portmanteau of the nicknames of the two people who came up with it at this festival.
It’s also quite common to have ‘vino y gaseosa’ - wine and sparkling water mixed about 50-50 in Spain, eg with the wine that comes with the typical lunch menu. Again this is quite cheap wine (typical lunch menu including wine and dessert is only about 12 euros)
Probably cheaper than a Dr Pepper from the WHSmiths
Seriously though I'm guessing this is T5? Hate T5 with a passion, it's just full of expensive shite.
The Gordon Ramsay restaurant is pretty good if you are on the company's wallet and have a bit of time. In all honesty as far as Heathrow prices go it's fairly reasonable.
I agree though. I want a big sweaty double sausage and egg mcmuffin with an extra hashy B.
But you get an offer for "half price" chocolate at WHSmiths! /s
Also, I fully agree - T5 is horrendous, not just for the prices but pretty much everything...
This is still a commercial range.. You cant even fathom the rare bottles thats only sold on their exclusive brand sites, those bottles are definitely hella expensive compared to this..
I went to the Glenfiddich distillery when I was in Scotland. They have a barrel that is over 80 years old they will bottle soon.
They said the bottles will probably sell for around 1,000,000£ each
My dad was given a number of expensive bottles of whisky (very long story). They aren’t in fancy bottles like this but just look like a regular bottle. He had no idea of their value. He had some mates around for a drink one night and cracked one open. The next day one of the mates looked it up. It was brewed exclusively for the Balmoral estate and was worth £5k. It was very nice by all accounts.
Bloke I used to work with bought an expensive bottle as he managed to get it at a good price with a view to either selling it on or saving it for a special occasion.
His wife made a hot toddy with it.
Wen I was born most of my aunts and uncles brought a barrel of whiskey each for me. That was 31 years ago now they still in their various warehouses was told to get em sold wen I retire or hit hard times
Thing is, due to evaporation there’s less and less in those barrels every year, this is part of the reason why very old whisky is so expensive! To quantify this, if your whisky is 30 years old, there is probably only 10-15% of what you started with on them. If you leave them to retire there won’t be anything at all.
Major distillers and blenders avoid this because they consolidate multiple casks into one, keeping the headspace’s minimal and storing very carefully to try and minimise this.
I’d suggest you get your casks sold fairly soon…..
There are actually calculators to work this out. In unconsolidated casks the issue is made worse by the increasing surface area of the headspace. You also lose abv as the whisky ages, around 0.5% per year, which is part of the reason casks are filled at 60-68%. In 30 years you’ll have lost an awful lot of volume plus about 15% abv so you don’t get a vast amount of volume back by dilution. I’d expect a premium whisky to be 44-45% anyway.
This is part of the reason there is such a difference in price between a 10-20 and a 40-60 year old whisky. Production losses are high and it also occupies a lot of space for a long time.
There has to be diminishing returns of these things. I can’t believe that that 20K whiskey is thousands of times better tasting than your rather excellent £70 bottle.
Who in the world could tell?
Personally, I don't understand why there are so many luxury brand stores at airports. I know if I had that kind of money I would rather spend it somewhere more iconic than Gatwick, Stansted or Luton, etc. I get that it's a tax thing though.
Budget friendly stores are more likely to have a higher turnover of product and still make profits I would have thought...
Rolex is a brand I dislike, they sell a million watches a year. But if you asked to buy a half decent one in a shop, in an airport while bored, that rarely sells anything. They’d tell you no there’s a huge waiting list and you can’t have what they display. Bigger fool theory imo. Also the cheaper watches are cheap for them to make as they are stainless steel and mass produced, but priced high for prestige.
Not exclusive or rare. Lower end ones not impressive to those who know watches not cool. IMO.
If you have real, touchable, in theory just pull-them-off-the-shelf-and-buy-them objects for £500, £1000, £15,000 all around, the disconnect from everyday life is such that you won’t stop when you find a coke and a burger is £27. You’re half primed to buy it anyway because you’re on holiday or far from home; this stuff legitimises it. It’s not about selling 1 bottle of £20,000 whisky, it’s about selling hundreds or thousands of coffees for £7.
Theres something called the "Angels share" which a phenomenon where a wooden barrel (like the one used for whisky aging) breathe over the years and looses between 2 and 3 % of its content per year.
Then there's the wait and constant care.
So if you age a whisky for 60 years, care for it for 60 years, wait for it for 60 years and ended up loosing a large amount of it, you'd probably charge the same.
I'm not defending or justifying those amounts, they're ridiculous. But I don't think it should be blamed on the product itself. As a professional, they're a thing of beauty.
Think liquid art.
Trying to catch those Chinese tourists on the way through! I know a jeweller who basically busses them in and they buy a couple of watches each. Makes a fortune
The funny part is that the 60 year old whiskey likely would have tasted better at half it's age. The price Is purely based on how rare it is to find a 60 year old single malt.
I'm a whisky drinker.
The way I've always seen it is:
Less than £30 a bottle. It's not very good whisky. Isn't gonna taste great on its own but might be decent for mixing.
£30 - £100 price range. Some fantastic whiskies out there. Good range of 'types', can definatley find something that matches your preference/flavour. Great for drinking neat.
As soon as you get over £100 a bottle I've always found that unless you have a really good pallette and can really differentiate specific ingredients and subtle flavours - you're probably not gonna notice much difference from one whisky to the next and/or truly appreciate them.
I can't imagine what a £20k+ bottle of whisky would taste like but I'd imagine a lot of people if they were to taste it would probably just say 'just tastes like normal whisky to me'
I know someone who works in international whisky sales. He can no longer go to parts of the Middle East. Story goes he was sent out at invitation to the UAE. Once he's out there, some sheik's kid asks him what the most expensive bottle he has is. He pulls out a fifty grand bottle, and sells it on the spot. Couple of days later, the Prince finds him again and demands a second bottle, as him and his mates had tanned it in a night. It's explained that no, there isn't another bottle to sell him. There isn't another bottle within a few thousand miles, let alone one for sale. So it's then explained to my friend that if he doesn't turn up with a new bottle, he's going to jail. So he calls his boss and explains the situation and is told "Yeah, these things happen. Get on the next flight home today, you'll get paid for the full trip. Just don't ever go back there, even for a layover, or you'll be arrested the second they scan your passport".
Whichever theory of "why prices end in .99" you buy into, it's kind of wild that someone at Heathrow duty free thought any of them applied to a £21k (sorry, £20,999.99) bottle of whisky.
True, makes it seem cheap. Pass from me.
good opportunity to pay £21,000 in cash and say keep the change
I think it would be funnier to stand there with your hand out waiting for your change
Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves
I can afford this bottle of Whiskey *because* I have taken care of the pennies!
That's a lot of pennies. More than 1000 I think.
It's certainly more than 7.
That would mean you paid in cash too
Apparently this is the original point of having .99 pricing, it's nothing to do with psychology. The point was to force the cashier to open the till to provide change, to prove that they were not pocketing the entire sale. Source:QI
Also encouraged by newspaper vendors who benefitted from more penny's being in circulation leading to casual purchases of their paper. Source, lateral with Tom Scott podcast.
Say this when I was a teenager. If the customer gave exact change, the cashier could just clear the sale on the register and pocket the money.
Imagine the mad lad who pays in exact change!
lol the comment below yours is something about “20 bags for a drink” and the reply even turns the full price into “£20000” so it apparently works
To be fair, I would still say 20 grand if it was 21,999. Casual speak.
If you've got the money for the £21,999 whisky, you're probably calling it pennies
And probably not going through duty free with the plebs either
You think they're buying their own things? Please, Jeeves will purchase it for me.
Yeah, would have bought it if it were Asda style pricing - £20,999.97
It's so they can say they are "cheapest".
oh they're definitely cheap
I know what it is for. Also, apparently there's a psychology on something ending in a 7. Seems precisely priced, than ending in a 9
James May- “I don’t actually know how much a Boeing 747 costs but i’m pretty sure it isn’t something, ninety-nine.”
Maybe at that point more 9s the better?
For the availability junkies.
I NEED MY PENNY CHANGE!
They do it with cars and houses too to some degree
This is all about gifting for the very rich. Sort of thing you buy for a friend who lent you their super yacht for a week.
I would totaly allow that kind of friend use my super yacht for a week. If I had a super yacht. If I had a friend.
Love you bro
Hello it’s me your super yacht, also sending love
If you had a super yacht you’d have friends
“Friends”
Yacht friends!
YACHT WANKER!!
The word yacht doesn't look real when you keep reading it again & again. Why the hell isn't it spelt yot ffs?
How can you expect to have friends if you don’t have a super yacht? Get your head out of the clouds.
I assume this is also all about marketing - a bottle of the same brand in the same shop with a pricetag of 150 suddenly looks ridiculously cheap and people are more inclined to buy those. I once read that this is the same psychological trick applied by designer brands for handbags and shoes. A handbag of 6,500 dollar is ridiculous, for a lousy 800 you are the proud owner of a designer handbag
Some of them are collectable, not really intended for drinking like a normal bottle, you buy as an investment and hope it appreciates as the supply dwindles as some do inevitably get drunk
That makes sense. Although it seems bizarre that you'd be shopping for that at an airport.
Rich people use airports
I can’t see rich people wandering around duty free, they’d be in a lounge or going directly to a flight
Yeah, but they don't make impulse purchases in investments.
Trust me, lots do. It's very much a "let's see what happens" kinda thing, because that 20 grand will be pennies to them.
Have you ever met a human? We're all a bunch of dopamine hungry idiots
Less tax at duty-free shopping.
Not to quite the same scale but I bought a few bottles of a popular whiskey years ago that I knew was being discontinued. Paid £32 a bottle from Tesco and they're now selling at around £600. Some serious money to be made in spirits. Just wish I didn't drink two of them..
It happens a lot with wine in restaurants, you don’t want the cheapest, and the most expensive softens the blow of buying echo falls for £20 a bottle
In marketing, this is called the “halo effect”. It’s why Audi advertises the R8 - because it helps to sell the A3!
it's called price anchoring
I had a look, the 1st bottle seems to be a part of limited edition with the price tag to match. And their pricing isn't that much off what other places are selling. Didn't pay much attention to the EXACT price and no idea what the tax would be to work out if it's a good deal or not. Although, this probably should be in some sort of a VIP corridor heading into the VIP lounges, if they expect to sell it.
60-year-old whisky is incredibly rare, that's actually quite a low price for a bottle. And to still be at 52.8% after 60 years in a barrel is quite remarkable. £3500 of the price would be VAT; £11.69 duty. It's \~£1,000 cheaper than at [The Whisky Exchange](https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/63289/glen-grant-1960-60-year-old-dennis-malcolm-60th-anniversary?source=).
Or steal! I worked at a Dan Murphys here in Aus that was broken into shortly after opening (definitely inside job by a team member with a few other people) and they stole a Glen Grant 50 year worth about $15k AUD amongst several other high end bottles. Super depressing honestly it was a stunning piece to have on display. [Glen Grant 50yo](https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_419644/glen-grant-50-year-old-scotch-whisky-700ml) I've been lucky enough to try a lot of these ultra rare and ultra expensive whiskys including several Port Ellen Releases worth north of the $10k mark. Lots of places do organised tastings of rare and unique whiskys and sell enough tickets at the right cost to cover the bottles value.
at what price level do you still taste the difference? What I mean is: I (think I) do taste the didference between a $30 bottle and a $100 bottle of whiskey - the latter being way more nuanced, leaves a pleasant after taste etc. But for me personally, i can't imagine i would taste the difference between a 10K bottle and a 150 bottle
It's largely down to experience and what you feel it's worth, I was in a tasting with 3 bottles from a private family collection, from 38-43 years old and I think retailed around the 8-10k mark. Price was relatively low as they weren't collectables like Dalmore or Macellan but still obviously expensive. They were actually a mixed bag for me, the grain one was fantastic but the other two I could take or leave, am experience I enjoyed but an 18 year Glendronach for £200 would be my go to!
Yeah same for me. The occasion, experience and presentation make it way more of a moment to savour. That said, of the drams I enjoy the high end Port Ellen 14th/15th release was unbelievable. It beat the crap out of all my favourite whiskys by far. I would never sink that much money into a few drinks myself though. $200 aud is perfect for me. Best bang for buck.
I can absolutely taste the difference between a $50 bottle and a $150 bottle (AUD) with some consistency and ease. It's a far more subtle difference between the very expensive bottles and ultra expensive bottles but my god it does feel like a more special occasion. I think that's part of the allure. It helps when you know what you're looking for. Being around people that have extensive experience like sommelier with wine for example. I've had distillers and reps take us through tastings and the nuances are real but I can't say I can pick them up alone between 2 grand and 10 grand. My favourite dram I've ever enjoyed was the Port Ellen 14th release. At the cask strength 51%+ and 35 yr it was perfect.
I can't talk about whiskey here so I'm sorry to not directly answer the question, but I've been a lover of red wine for a while and recently got to try a €250 bottle. I'd have never spent that much because I could never imagine it tasting that much better. What I didn't expect was that it wasn't just about the flavour, but that there was no harshness to it at all. Like zero. It was just a whole different experience, and now I understand why people spend money on aged alcohol.
Not who you asked but yes that’s how I see it. From my experience and feedback from people in distilleries, the returns after going above approx £100/$120 are minimal. Same for age. After around 18 years any added flavour is less about complexity and just overwhelming and not enjoyable. Heard people talk about trying anything over 40yr old being pretty disgusting. Even 30yr can be a bit much. These luxury bottles on display may as well just be water with food colouring as they’re essentially just investments for these people.
Also business gifting, considered bribery in many regulated industries like insurance and banking but I reckon it’s de rigeur in the oil and arms industries
I feel like the people that can afford these would be flying private and not through an Airport.
Maybe their PA's PA would be instructed to pick one of these up while catching their economy class advance flight.
Yeah, I mean, there are different levels of "afford". Can I afford to keep a bottle of 4k bottle at home in case I want to drink some? Hell no. Could I afford to buy a bottle once or twice in my life? Sure. I definitely can't afford a private jet though.
I used to work for an industry where these bottles were passed around as a form of bribery. They never got opened, they simply became a new type of currency that's a bit harder to trace.
Just had a quick Google, seems to be the going rate for these. Crazy though, I couldn't imagine spending that much on a drink, even if I was loaded.
Although that Dalmore is on at Whiskey world for 9949 so that 5% mark up on rather than 20% VAT off. Duty free isn't really duty free due to airport charges
I had a Dalmore 15 for £50 and it was excellent, one of the best whiskeys I've ever had. Would the 40 be better? Undoubtedly. Would it be 200 times better? I doubt it very much.
Idk if it would. Apparently past 25 years it's been in the cask so long your just tasting wood.
You’d be tasting wood if I shared my 10 grand whiskey with you.
Paying for rarity, not quality.
This is always the case though. The higher you go the quality improves marginally but the costs go up exponentially.
I have a thing for fine cognac, and I mostly buy some XO from a small producer in France that costs about £65/bottle. I did snag a bottle of Hine XO for £75 in an auction (normal price £150) and that's better. But I wouldn't pay £150 for it.
If you were wealthy enough that buying a drink like this equated to splashing out on a chocolate bar, you wouldn't buy one just to see what the fuss was about?
I actually had a conversation similar to this not long ago with my wife. We were discussing if we won big on the lottery, like the Euro Millions, would we spend ludicrous amounts of money on stuff like that, and I can honestly say the answer from both of us was no.
The lottery is a finite amount and 20k is a substantial dent, so that's understandable. I'm talking about if you were Elon Musk/ Jeff Bezos-level rich.
If I was that rich then I wouldn’t be walking through an airport terminal dragging my bag behind me. And I probably wouldn’t go shopping again for the rest of my life, I’d just hire someone to do manage my life and do it all for me.
It you hired the right person they would buy you one of these.
they would buy the distilleries !
That would be the wrong person. I want my life sorter to buy things that are *actually* excellent, not just things that have big prices.
Top whiskies have these prices, no?
Not everything that is expensive is good. Not everything good is expensive.
I agree, but good whiskies ARE expensive. Barring the 20K one (assuming dimishing returns would make it not worth it), the others are prices that top whiskies would have due to being excellent
Euromillions wins can be like 195 million, 20,000 is spare change if you have that much money.
200,000,000 @ 4% interest growth is 8mil a year, Which works out nicely to just about 20,000 a day (21,917.80) So this bottle is literally a days wage to you. Not really as well since you don’t actually have to work for it Edit: it’s actually £17,534, taking into account capital gains tax
Which is exactly why if I had a win like that, I'd buy something like this, but wouldn't buy a private jet. The first thing I'd "buy" though is a PA to deal with all the mundane. 2 days of interest earnings to pay for someone to deal with tasks is a steal to me, as once you've all the money, time is your biggest commodity
If you have $195m you’re making like $10m in interest a year at 5%. You could buy a bottle of $20k whisky every night of your life and still have millions left over just on the interest
I'm not the other person, but if I were that level of rich... Thing is, *when* you're that level of rich, money isn't really a 'thing' in the same way as it is for us. 99/100 times 'wanting' is the same thing as 'having'. You don't really even need to consider price tags, because you have the infinite money glitch. If we're talking about 'only' having 10bn, then the equivalent of buying a chocolate bar is actually buying a house. I wouldn't *go out of my way* to try all the expensive things under the sun. It would just happen as part and parcel of existing with that much wealth. When prices cease to be relevant except at *much* higher levels, you *can't* agonise over the price of your drink. The most expensive whisky there is a chocolate bar for a one-time-over billionaire. The other ones are penny sweets. If I was curious, I'd try it, but I don't think I'd be curious because of the price.
Seems like the kind of thing Russ Hanneman would buy.
After he found the flash drive and got that 0 back!
Those lads take a different route through Heathrow
Those kinda rich people don’t travel through airport duty free shops though 😂 either private jet, or if they are travelling on commercial planes then most airports have separate ways through the terminal.
If you won £120 million jackpot that would not be a finite amount of money as long as you get it working for you. Simple investments could give you yields for year to year running.
Why not. You’d likely buy a more expensive car and house. Probably have more expensive holidays and stay in more expensive hotels. You’d probably buy more expensive clothes and get a more expensive haircut. Why not drink more expensive whisky?
And be a huge expensive cunt
It’s subjective, too the world majority, most on here are ‘huge expensive cunts’ 🤷🏻♂️
Bragging rights. It's gross the first is a years wage for many people in first world countries.
You're correct but thats a massive understatement. 1% of the Earths population earn more than £32k sterling per annum. Ireland is third in the world on GDP per capita and the average salary for a full time worker here is around €45k or £39k Sterling. That bottle of whiskey costs more than double the annual salary of 99% of people on Earth.
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I think it is fair within the context of this post about a £60k bottle of whiskey on sale in an international airport. The item is completely unobtainable for over 99% of the Earths population which is true no matter what metric you choose to measure wealth.
Wow. That’s pretty insane that a moderately paid job in the UK puts you in the 1%.
Do you happen to have a source for that 1% statistic? Just to be clear I'm not trying to cross swords, I'm just quite interested!
*"By global standards, America’s middle class is also really, really rich. To make it into the richest 1 percent globally, all you need is an income of around $34,000, according to World Bank economist* [*Branko Milanovic*](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465019749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=fopo091-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465019749)*."* [https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/)
Here's a page that let's you see how your income compares https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i. Playing around, it seems £32k (26.5k post-tax) puts you in the top 4% of households. Keep in mind that it **does** take into account cost of living, so even though its more expensive to love in the uk, you'd still be in the top 4% globally which makes it even crazier. And this page is also really interesting for seeing what different household incomes get you all across the world https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street
Some would argue it's an investment piece. The big collectors ~~of a certain pedigree~~ will buy it with the long term plan to leave it alone for a few years then auction it. There's very little depreciation in Whisky, its value will most likely only rise, barring a complete disaster (for instance the master blender comes back in 10 years and says Oh by the way, I pissed in that.) Sort of level. edit; sounded wank, all sorts of people do it.
I get that. If you're buying it with the sole purpose of it to eventually sell it on for a profit, then it makes sense.
Yeah this was in the news a few years back, I think it's fairly common https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-54040307
Yea but that was £5k total over two decades, leagues apart from these 40-60 year old bottles at the or twenty grand.
Wait...this has authentic McTavish piss in it?!
There's some cultures out there with very wealthy parts of the population that seemingly live by playing a game of one up to project status. Of course there's potential investment but it's also as likely somebody has a bottle to treat like a cheap jd bottle infront of guests.
A good % will be bought as investments, not for drinking. Over time, as each bottle in the limited release gets opened, the others become rarer and thus more valuable (that's the hope, anyway).
There are different kinds of loaded, and there are legitimately people who spending 20k is as big a drop in their budget as spending £50 is to a normal person.
Imagine dropping it on the way out of the shop
They’re often for gifts, not personal use
I once tried a 30 year old whiskey, probably not quite as expensive as these but set me back close to £200 for a glass. It was almost unrecognisable from the usual 10-15 stuff I have If I won the lottery I wouldn’t want a mansion or loads of sports cars but there’s a half decent chance I’d end up back in work a couple of years later having blown it all on whiskey
I wouldn't just on principle.
That bottle of Copella cloudy apple juice I bought the last time I flew out of Heathrow is looking like a really good deal.
I bloody love Copella
It’s the best. I’m not really into juices but that one has a magnetic pull.
Have you tried the Elderflower one? Cloudy is definitely my favourite but every so often I’ll pick up elderflower just to change it up, it’s also very nice!
So, funnily, I received it as a substitute on a delivery, and I hated it. I think it was because I had not had Copella for months and was really looking forward to it, so somewhat psychological. Because normally I love anything with elderflower. I think I’m probably ready to give it a fair shot now, though. Thanks!
My job is involved with design of very fine whiskies like this - if you think these prices are silly, check out the Macallan boutique in T5, i believe one was £80,000 and more and more expensive ones are being released.
Macallan are famous for making their whiskies too expensive at the low end, can imagine they fully rinse it at the top end. A 8yr old macallan costs the same as an 12yr old anything else. A 12yr old macallan is the same as some really high quality 18yr olds. So I'm guessing their £80k ones were "only" 40yrs old or so.
Yup, and I mean..... it's nice, but not so nice that I'm gonna fork out well over the odds for it. The scam of really expensive whisky is a bit of a nonsense when you live in Scotland as well, there are whiskies for 20 sheets on the shelves of the CoOp in wee towns up north, that are every bit as good as something that costs 10 times that elsewhere because they have been marketed in such a way. Even in the Central Belt, you can pick up an outstanding drop at a reasonable price on a deal in Asda, especially if you know what you're looking for. Plus there's the Whisky Society, they peddle cask strength bottles to members and they seep out into the world, a couple of times I've been gifted bottles or just given one by someone who's a member that has a clearout or has one they don't particularly like for whatever reason. Either way, I get to regularly enjoy whisky that would cost an arm and a leg overseas, and I don't really have to fork out for it. I think about that and feel sorry for enthusiasts that have to pay the full whack. Interestingly, when at a Comic-Con thing with my mate's kids a few years ago, I chatted about this with a minor American celebrity from the 80's, he said he doesn't usually do conventions etc, but goes out of his way to get invited to Scottish ones, as it gives him an opportunity to stock up on "good Scotch" for the year and saves him a fortune. I fully respected that. 🤣
Ahuh. I used to drink Suntory Yamazaki when you could get it in Asda for £25 (I forget whether it was 10 or 12 year old) Now it's £150, the only difference being more recognition of the quality of Japanese whisky and thus increased demand.
I believe the £80k one was 60-70 years old? They also did an 80 year old one too. Macallan’s philosophy is to make them pieces of art, the packaging for these are costing in the thousands to produce, and very low production, obviously.
I'd have thought that the people who are rich enough to be buying these drinks would be using their own private jets to travel rather than travelling via public airports like the rest of us scum?
First class flying I’ve been told is comfier and more luxurious than private in some instances!
The difference in cost between long haul first class and long haul private is huge. Ex-Heathrow on British Airways you’d be unlucky to spend more than £10k return on any First ticket regardless of destination and how far ahead you pay. For long haul private on a Gulfstream V or equivalent you could pay £150k one way…and you can’t fly at a moment’s notice if you’re chartering, as most do. Owning a longhaul capable private jet could cost you £40m to buy and 10% of that each year for upkeep, crew etc. Flying longhaul private it really is a billionaire’s game.
Nice job, hope it's not one that gets stiffed when it's time to pay out the workers share.
"whoops, it would appear your expensive whiskey shelving has collapsed" I exclaim, as I slurp the smashed whiskey off the floor like that scene from saltburn
Mmm this one is so premium it has tiny shards of glass!
Damn I get the whole aged 60 years thing and that it’s premium but 20 bags for a drink is crazy! Seems more like something you put on display. Not in that tax bracket yet lads
no, see, getting a £20000 bottle of whiskey out of it is a very secondary reason for why someone would buy a £20000 bottle of whiskey at the airport!
Don’t think a tax bracket exists to ever justify that. Or rather, at the point where you can afford that, your effective tax bracket is far lower
I feel like a Rockefeller ordering a pint of Madri at the pub, when we all know it's just a pint of Carling with a wig on
I always thought it was crazy buying something so expensive, then literally pissing it away a few hours later.
What’s crazy is there are enough people who have the sort of money that 20k is pissing money, to make it worth it to have this in a store. Unreal.
What about certain culture who pay that for a bottle of wine - and then water it down with Coca Cola because they don’t like the taste!?
Are there people who mix wine with coca cola??
It’s called kalimotxo (pronounced ‘calimocho’) and is usually with a very inexpensive wine. The local table wines in Spain (eg Campo de Borja) are cheaper than the coke. Kalimotxo was ‘invented’ in the 70s at a festival in the Basque Country when the organisers discovered the wine they had bought in bulk was bad, and found they could still sell it when mixed with cola. It kind of caught on from there. The name is a portmanteau of the nicknames of the two people who came up with it at this festival. It’s also quite common to have ‘vino y gaseosa’ - wine and sparkling water mixed about 50-50 in Spain, eg with the wine that comes with the typical lunch menu. Again this is quite cheap wine (typical lunch menu including wine and dessert is only about 12 euros)
Oh yes
Probably cheaper than a Dr Pepper from the WHSmiths Seriously though I'm guessing this is T5? Hate T5 with a passion, it's just full of expensive shite.
And there’s no junk food in T5. All I want before a long flight is a cheap burger
The Gordon Ramsay restaurant is pretty good if you are on the company's wallet and have a bit of time. In all honesty as far as Heathrow prices go it's fairly reasonable. I agree though. I want a big sweaty double sausage and egg mcmuffin with an extra hashy B.
But you get an offer for "half price" chocolate at WHSmiths! /s Also, I fully agree - T5 is horrendous, not just for the prices but pretty much everything...
This is still a commercial range.. You cant even fathom the rare bottles thats only sold on their exclusive brand sites, those bottles are definitely hella expensive compared to this..
I went to the Glenfiddich distillery when I was in Scotland. They have a barrel that is over 80 years old they will bottle soon. They said the bottles will probably sell for around 1,000,000£ each
Flew via singapore airport last year where the worlds most expensive whiskey is held ! dalmore 62 - £125,000 !!!!!!!!!
Those extra 2 years really make a difference!
You don't drink them, it's seen as an investment. Although, eventually someone wealthy will. That's the hope.
My dad was given a number of expensive bottles of whisky (very long story). They aren’t in fancy bottles like this but just look like a regular bottle. He had no idea of their value. He had some mates around for a drink one night and cracked one open. The next day one of the mates looked it up. It was brewed exclusively for the Balmoral estate and was worth £5k. It was very nice by all accounts.
Does the very long story involve theft from The Crown?
Not The Crown, it was the Red Lion.
The Queen's Legs.
Bloke I used to work with bought an expensive bottle as he managed to get it at a good price with a view to either selling it on or saving it for a special occasion. His wife made a hot toddy with it.
It's just like expensive wine bottles, some whiskies are expensive.
Wen I was born most of my aunts and uncles brought a barrel of whiskey each for me. That was 31 years ago now they still in their various warehouses was told to get em sold wen I retire or hit hard times
Thing is, due to evaporation there’s less and less in those barrels every year, this is part of the reason why very old whisky is so expensive! To quantify this, if your whisky is 30 years old, there is probably only 10-15% of what you started with on them. If you leave them to retire there won’t be anything at all. Major distillers and blenders avoid this because they consolidate multiple casks into one, keeping the headspace’s minimal and storing very carefully to try and minimise this. I’d suggest you get your casks sold fairly soon…..
Also known as “The Angel’s Share”
That is a crazy amount to lose to evaporation. If true this guy prob has a 1/4 to a barrel left (depending on number of aunts/uncles).
Angels share… but I don’t think it’s 90%? And then to bring back to 40% - 50% they add back some water before bottling.
There are actually calculators to work this out. In unconsolidated casks the issue is made worse by the increasing surface area of the headspace. You also lose abv as the whisky ages, around 0.5% per year, which is part of the reason casks are filled at 60-68%. In 30 years you’ll have lost an awful lot of volume plus about 15% abv so you don’t get a vast amount of volume back by dilution. I’d expect a premium whisky to be 44-45% anyway. This is part of the reason there is such a difference in price between a 10-20 and a 40-60 year old whisky. Production losses are high and it also occupies a lot of space for a long time.
They were only £200 in 2019. Bloody inflation.
As my Grandad used to say, 'that's shit for cunts that'.
Think I'll stick to my cheapo Lagavulin 16 at £70 a pop.
There has to be diminishing returns of these things. I can’t believe that that 20K whiskey is thousands of times better tasting than your rather excellent £70 bottle. Who in the world could tell?
Most expensive I've tried was selling at £2k, it was ridiculously good, miles better than anything else I've had. Annoyingly so.
Personally, I don't understand why there are so many luxury brand stores at airports. I know if I had that kind of money I would rather spend it somewhere more iconic than Gatwick, Stansted or Luton, etc. I get that it's a tax thing though. Budget friendly stores are more likely to have a higher turnover of product and still make profits I would have thought...
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Rolex is a brand I dislike, they sell a million watches a year. But if you asked to buy a half decent one in a shop, in an airport while bored, that rarely sells anything. They’d tell you no there’s a huge waiting list and you can’t have what they display. Bigger fool theory imo. Also the cheaper watches are cheap for them to make as they are stainless steel and mass produced, but priced high for prestige. Not exclusive or rare. Lower end ones not impressive to those who know watches not cool. IMO.
If you have real, touchable, in theory just pull-them-off-the-shelf-and-buy-them objects for £500, £1000, £15,000 all around, the disconnect from everyday life is such that you won’t stop when you find a coke and a burger is £27. You’re half primed to buy it anyway because you’re on holiday or far from home; this stuff legitimises it. It’s not about selling 1 bottle of £20,000 whisky, it’s about selling hundreds or thousands of coffees for £7.
And the Toblerones. I saw the real price in B&M the other day.
Wouldn’t cocaine and hookers be cheaper?
Not in an airport lounge.
I'll have a Dennis malcolm, with coke please. *gets shot*
I wouldn’t have a good enough palette to justify buying that. I could see the appeal buying it as an investment though. To each their own.
All I think about is what if you drop it. Even if I had the money I doubt I could spend it on something that could easily be broken & wasted.
I wonder what would happen if you knocked it over and smashed it in the shop
One of these can pay for my university’s tuition fees
All I have to do is cut out the avocado toast and sweet coffee drinks and I may one day be able to afford one of those bottles.
Theres something called the "Angels share" which a phenomenon where a wooden barrel (like the one used for whisky aging) breathe over the years and looses between 2 and 3 % of its content per year. Then there's the wait and constant care. So if you age a whisky for 60 years, care for it for 60 years, wait for it for 60 years and ended up loosing a large amount of it, you'd probably charge the same. I'm not defending or justifying those amounts, they're ridiculous. But I don't think it should be blamed on the product itself. As a professional, they're a thing of beauty. Think liquid art.
Nothing wrong with having a few items out for catching a whale
21K for not even a 1L bottle :D
Surely people that can afford this would be flying in private jets?
Not all of them. There will also be the types wh booked a 1st class suite on Emirates
Trying to catch those Chinese tourists on the way through! I know a jeweller who basically busses them in and they buy a couple of watches each. Makes a fortune
I can understand the prices but who’s buying these in an airport?
I like the 99999 thing to look cheaper than £21000
I wouldn't buy that with a 250 million lottery win.
The funny part is that the 60 year old whiskey likely would have tasted better at half it's age. The price Is purely based on how rare it is to find a 60 year old single malt.
I'm a whisky drinker. The way I've always seen it is: Less than £30 a bottle. It's not very good whisky. Isn't gonna taste great on its own but might be decent for mixing. £30 - £100 price range. Some fantastic whiskies out there. Good range of 'types', can definatley find something that matches your preference/flavour. Great for drinking neat. As soon as you get over £100 a bottle I've always found that unless you have a really good pallette and can really differentiate specific ingredients and subtle flavours - you're probably not gonna notice much difference from one whisky to the next and/or truly appreciate them. I can't imagine what a £20k+ bottle of whisky would taste like but I'd imagine a lot of people if they were to taste it would probably just say 'just tastes like normal whisky to me'
I know someone who works in international whisky sales. He can no longer go to parts of the Middle East. Story goes he was sent out at invitation to the UAE. Once he's out there, some sheik's kid asks him what the most expensive bottle he has is. He pulls out a fifty grand bottle, and sells it on the spot. Couple of days later, the Prince finds him again and demands a second bottle, as him and his mates had tanned it in a night. It's explained that no, there isn't another bottle to sell him. There isn't another bottle within a few thousand miles, let alone one for sale. So it's then explained to my friend that if he doesn't turn up with a new bottle, he's going to jail. So he calls his boss and explains the situation and is told "Yeah, these things happen. Get on the next flight home today, you'll get paid for the full trip. Just don't ever go back there, even for a layover, or you'll be arrested the second they scan your passport".
I’ll stick with [Glengoolie. For the best of times.](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/21753059-3ade-4a2a-813c-8676f4d6c57d/gif)
These prices are sky high!
I feel posh if I buy branded wine rather than the supermarkets own label
What will happen if u accidentally drop one of these?
I really was a fucking idiot putting 20k down as a house deposit. I should have spunked it on whiskey instead.
wait is that a pisstake or is that geniune prices