Are wealthy whisky enthusiasts leaving Britain?

Fewer wealthy people than feared are fleeing the chancellor’s scrapping of non-dom status in the Budget last April. That’s according to an assessment of “initial tax data”, the Financial Times said on 13 August. The Office for Budget Responsibility had warned the government at the start of the year that one in ten non-doms without trusts – and a quarter with trusts – would leave Britain in search of a more welcoming tax regime.

Nothing to worry about, then? Not quite. For starters, the available data is a little sketchy – the clue’s in the word “initial” – and estimates tend to get revised anyway. We’ll have a much clearer idea of how many non-doms have left when tax returns are filed for the current tax year, in January 2027. But we don’t have to wait that long, because there is already plenty of anecdotal evidence that wealthy individuals are leaving, or have already left.

“Mayfair is quiet,” Simon Aron, the founder of Cask Trade, tells me at the cask-whisky specialist’s office on Regent Street. “Wealthy whisky enthusiasts are just not here any more.” Aron puts that down to Brexit, Covid and the non-dom status change.

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And where have they gone? Well, lots of places, but Cyprus and Italy – where high-net-worth individuals can opt to pay a flat tax of €200,000 a year – are particular favourites, as is Dubai, with its lack of income and inheritance taxes. Dubai also has a “thriving drinks scene”, says Aron. Not among the Emirati population, to be sure, but among the wealthy expatriate community. Dubai is growing, and there is more disposable income to spend on collectable luxuries, such as rare whisky.

Whisky collecting rises in India

Cask Trade has decided to “follow the money” and it has just opened an office in Dubai to cater for this footloose segment of its clientele. To export whisky to the United Arab Emirates, you need to have an import agent, which the company has. The cask whisky also needs to be bottled before it can be shipped, because the casks have to stay in Scotland – Scots rules, not Emirati.

Opening an office in the Middle East has another attraction – “Dubai is the gateway to India”, says Aron. India already has a long tradition of enjoying whisky. Whisky has been made in India since the 19th century, but more recently, Indian whiskies have been picking up awards at international competitions.

Whisky collecting as a hobby has taken off in the country with the expansion of the middle class, as in much of Asia more generally. The Dubai office adds to the office Cask Trade it already has in Hong Kong. While the rare whisky market has struggled to regain its pandemic-era highs, new pockets of whisky enthusiasts are springing up. “Dubai is the springboard to India,” says Aron. “And the world is on the move.”

Starting a whisky collection

Rare whisky prices are still recovering from the decade-long buying binge that accelerated during the lockdown periods of the pandemic. In the decade to this year, rare whisky prices have soared 192%, according to Knight Frank’s “The Wealth Report 2025” – and that’s including the downturn that started in 2022.

At the end of May of that year, prices for the most sought-after bottles reached dizzying heights before embarking on a long, steady decline that still continues, as shown by the Rare Whisky Icon 100 index, which tracks the prices of the most coveted collectable bottles of whisky. Over the past 12 months, the index has fallen 13%. Is any let-up in sight?

No, is the short answer from the latest “Whisky Intelligence Report” from Edinburgh-based investment bank Noble & Co.

Between January and April 2025, whisky volumes transacted at auction fell 37% from a year earlier, and values plunged 52%. Lower-priced bottles are favoured over higher-priced ones, which, as the report notes, could be because sellers are shelving their most treasured bottles for better days. The average price of a bottle sold at auction was £211 last April, down from £493 two years before. Auction activity in the top segment of the market (above £10,000 per bottle) has all but dried up.

While a recovery may still be a way off, the nice thing about collecting whisky is that you can simply wait. As a collector, “you have time to keep whisky”, says Simon Aron of Cask Trade. And if you’re not already a collector, but would like to become one, now is a great time to start. Prices for some casks, especially new-make (spirit that has just gone into the cask), are “unbelievable”, says Aron. He points to Tormore barrels, priced at £1,995, as an example of a good-value cask of new-make whisky, and a three-year-old cask of Glenburgie, costing £2,750, for something a little older.

Visit casktrade.com for the current stock list.

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