Collector's Corner

Name Mark Davis

Age 47

Occupation I run Hard to Find Wines, a small family-owned wine retailer in Shropshire

How long have you been collecting whisky? About eight years. I started just before the pandemic and it coincided with the so-called ‘whisky bubble’*.

What was your first bottle? A 25-year-old 200th anniversary Lagavulin, which I bought for about £300 and now worth between £1,200 and £1,500. It was limited to 8,000 bottles.

How many bottles are in your collection? Around 600. I’ve slowed down a bit in recent years.

What’s it worth? I reckon around £140,000.

Where do you keep them? At the moment, at home

What does Mrs. Davis think about all these bottles taking up space? Actually Samantha, my wife, has been very supportive. You’d be surprised by the number of women who are not only enjoying whisky, but also making it and collecting it. In fact I have bottles from Nc’nean, an independent organic single malt distillery based in Drimnin on Scotland’s West Coast (Drimnin) founded by Annabel Thomas in 2017. She makes a softer, more approachable, style of Whisky. I bought some of her first bottles for around £150. Now I think they’re worth about £600 to £700.

What are the most treasured items in the collection? My full set of Macallan Portfolio whiskys. They are highly sought-after limited-edition single malts. The bottles come in book-shaped tins and commemorate Macallan’s vintage print and film ad campaigns from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. I also love Bimber’s ‘The Spirit of the Underground Collection’ of 44 different single cask bottlings, with each release themed around a specific London Underground station. Like a good collector. I’m trying to get the whole set.

Are you part of a whisky-collecting community? Not really, but I am on whiskybase.com**.

What is your Grail whisky? It would have to be the super-rare Dalmore, 35-year-old. It’s matured old Bourbon barrels, sherry casks and port pipes and comes in a Baccarat crystal decanter featuring a solid silver stag, presented in a leather case. It changes hands for between £6,000 and £8,000.

What whisky do you have from the more esoteric countries? I have Indri from India, and Chichibu and Yamazaki from Japan. I also have the ‘Nine Worlds of Norse Mythology’ series from Bivrost, the world’s northernmost distillery, in Northern Norway.

Advice to collectors? Stay within your means and look out for the new releases, any new releases. Diageo released a 13-bottle ‘Game of Thrones’ collection to celebrate the final season, which I was able to buy on Amazon and they have really appreciated. Also I recently bought the first batch of the Rosemaund Whisky from the Chase Distillery in Herefordshire. They will never become available again so….

Do you collect anything else? Golf clubs!

Final thoughts? I suppose the collection will eventually go towards paying my children’s university education and trust fund. Yes, There are a few underperforming bottles that I will probably open and enjoy, but you know what? If all else fails, it’s a lovely thing to drink.

Mark Davis is a wine merchant and whisky collector from Shropshire where he runs a small family-owned wine retailer, Hard to Find Wines.

* A period of rapid, and ultimately unsustainable, rise in prices for premium, rare, and limited-edition whisky bottles, especially single malt Scotch, that saw whisky become a commodity rather than a consumer item, which reached its peak around 2021-2022, with some releases experiencing significant growth (in some cases over 100% in a few months). Since 2024–2025 it has slowed.

** The world’s largest online community, database, and marketplace for whisky enthusiasts, founded in 2007. It has a 280,000-bottle database with ratings, reviews, and a marketplace for buying and selling bottles.