The growth of the bourbon market has seemed to be unbounded the past decade, until finding a slowing pace this year as inflation took the wind out of the sails. As folks buckled down with the pricing pressures of the current economic headwinds, suddenly chasing that unicorn bottle became second fiddle to putting dinner on the table. These price dynamics were reflected in the Bourboneur Secondary Market Index with data pulled yesterday showing the overall market cooled to the tune of 11.15 percent in 2024. So, with that backdrop where does that leave us for 2025? Below we collate our thoughts on the year ahead on the bourbon secondary market, the market overall, and what you might expect to see.
Limited releases and allocated bottles will continue to be rare and command an inflated price tag in 2025. If you were hoping to hear us say the market is about to bust, there’s just no way. Even in today’s economy as I write this, a line of 400+ folks, many of which were camped out for days, sits outside a liquor store in San Antonio, Texas awaiting the promise of a drop of allocated bourbons. When folks are willing to sit in a tent in a parking lot for days on end for the promise of scoring bourbon, that’s telling. Allocated bourbon is still and will continue to be a hot commodity, and a new generation of bourbon lovers is in the wings, with all signs pointed to a healthy secondary market for years to come. #capitalism
There’s long been speculation about the bourbon market becoming saturated as new capacity comes online from what seems like every single distillery trying to ramp up to meet demand. In the news just the other day was the announcement from MGP that they would be scaling back production, a sign many suggest equates to oversupply. This comes in response to “softening American whiskey category trends and elevated industry-wide barrel inventories…” CEO David Bratcher noted. The current dynamics in the market are quite interesting, but it is important to note that the market is still growing and factors like Joe (or Judy) Consumer’s demand for allocated bourbons which will still remain strong in the years ahead will influence prices. So, while there may be some oversupply, the market remains robust with strong demand, especially for premium products. GMI estimates in their latest forecast below that the whiskey market here in the United States is on course to nearly double in the next decade, further reinforcing the narrative that there’s plenty of running room for bourbon in the years ahead.
As we wrote a few weeks back, it’s still a bit early to tell how President Trump may play a hand in shaping markets as he comes back into office in early 2025. It seems highly likely that tariffs will be a mainstay of his policy agenda, and therefore it is likely that we see retaliatory tariffs come into play, some of which during his first term in office were pointed at American whiskey by the European Union, potentially impacting bourbon prices. The cost structure for production of bourbon also may change in response to rising taxes on aging barrels and/or other regulatory changes that may drive shelf prices northward. It feels a safe assumption that we see costs move north no matter what given that’s just the way of it it feels like…given of course “nothing is certain except death and taxes” and the consumers will bear the brunt of any forthcoming tax bills thanks to trickle-down economics.
The days of retail pricing are mostly gone for anything that is sought after, and the rare times that does happen are nearly as rare as the bottles folks are chasing. As we look at what the market has done over the past few years and where it’s headed in the short term, secondary pricing will become the new “fair market value” for most bourbons. That doesn’t always mean higher than retail, take for example two recent secondary purchases I made, a 10th Anniversary Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon, and a Old Grand Dad 16. In the case of the Garrison, it was on the shelf at my local big box liquor store for $265 (before tax). I bought it for $260 flat, shipped to my door. In the case of the Old Grand Dad, the retail price point is $195 – I got it for $200, again, to my door. In these cases I saved money on the secondary. That’s not the case for every bottle, but, in today’s market the secondary values set the scale for what’s a fair value and what the market will bear in terms of price.
Data matters and having up-to-date and reliable information to make informed decisions about buying, selling or trading coveted bottles of brownwater is critical. The secondary market doesn’t stand still and neither do we in cataloguing and providing the web’s most accurate, reliable and up-to-date pricing around. As new bottles hit the market, their pricing changes daily…finding a ceiling, and eventually a floor. The market shifts up and down, commensurate with the economy – with the bourbon secondary market down some eleven percent year-to-date as mentioned earlier. If you’re looking for a resource that’s based on real data grounded in actual sales on the secondary market, is updated regularly, and has values for over 5,500 bottles and growing at your fingertips, you need to look no further than the Bourboneur App for iOS and Android. Better still you can add your collection to the “My Bottles” section and keep tabs on your collections value daily with a updated graph showing how your bottles fare compared to the market overall. The app does require a paid subscription, only $3 per month or $25 a year, which easily pays for itself!
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