If you have spent more than five minutes on Facebook recently, you will have been bombarded by whisky cask investment adverts. Whisky beats the banks. Whisky is tax-free. Whisky always goes up in value. These claims are everywhere, and they are, frankly, laughable. The problem is that people believe them and people follow them. So I thought it was time to run through the most common myths these companies peddle and explain why the reality is far less glamorous than the glossy adverts suggest. Let’s start with the “cash loses value” myth. Yes, cash does lose value. My research suggests that cash has lost roughly 19% of its purchasing power since 2022. But here is what these adverts conveniently omit: the average whisky cask investment over that same period has likely lost closer to 30%. And unlike cash sitting on your kitchen counter with zero associated fees, casks come with storage costs, insurance, regauging, sampling, and whatever other charges get tacked on along the way. Cash is also liquid. If you need it, you spend it. If you have locked your money into a whisky cask bought in 2022 and need to sell now, good luck. It is a buyer’s
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