'I'm a whisky expert and these are the five key steps to starting your own collection'

Daily Record

05-05-2025

A whisky expert has shared advice for Scots looking to get into whisky collecting. Scotland's national drink has countless fans across the country - and the globe - but collecting the spirit as a hobby can be a daunting prospect at first.
Many people are casual fans of whisky, enjoying a dram at their local bar. However, some enthusiasts have built substantial collections of rare whiskies from distilleries across Scotland over the years.
If you are looking to start your own whisky collection, it can be hard to know where to begin. With so many unique and expensive bottles for sale, it can seem impossible to get into collecting as a hobby unless you are both extremely knowledgeable and wealthy.
Thankfully, this is not true at all. There is nothing stopping you from starting your very own unique library of whiskies.
Events manager at Jackton Distillery Jethro Rolland has shared five tips for novice whisky collectors with the Daily Record. From centering a personal collection to making peace with incompletion, his advice is a great jumping-off point.
Speaking to the Daily Record, Rolland, 30, commented: "I think that whisky is one of the most sociable hobbies you can have. It is something that is very unique to Scotland, it really helps you understand the history and the culture and the importance of the local area.
"In a lot of cases whisky distilleries and whisky blending is something that is supporting the local community in the Islands or in the Highlands. Your purchases are directly going towards supporting people who are doing something fantastic with a local product that otherwise wouldn't necessarily have a way of supporting themselves in quite a remote area.
"Whisky collecting has a wonderful community around it, everyone I've ever met who is a whisky collector has always been fantastically welcoming and warm. Getting into that hobby, it's not cutthroat and there's no competition—not really."
He added: "Everyone is all about supporting each other, and just helping each other build the best collection they can."
Read on for Jethro Rolland's five top tips to get into whisky collecting.
1. Know why you want to collect
This is the most important thing to know when you are starting your collection. Many people stumble into collecting over time as they visit Scotland's vast number of distilleries, and they wake up one day to find that the whisky shelf has become a whisky cabinet, has become a whisky room. It's simple to become an accidental collector!
However, if you are consciously picking up whisky collecting as a hobby, you should be able to answer right away: what is my goal? You should be collecting for fun first and foremost.
Maybe, though, part of that fun is to say you have the most in the world of something.
Perhaps it's fun for you to collect for aesthetics—to have a collection which is as much art as it is whisky, from a bottler such as Fable. Perhaps you want to collect to set yourself a fun challenge, or perhaps you wish to be a social collector—to have pockets full of rare samples to trade and discuss with other aficionados.
Some also wish to collect as an investment, but this should never be your primary reason for collecting. It may well end up being an added bonus one day, but returns can never be guaranteed.
Every time you pick up a bottle for your collection you should ask yourself: if I could never sell this whisky, would I be happy to pop the cork and sip it with my closest pals? If the answer is no—put it back!
2. Centre a personal collection
The best collections have that personal touch. The bottles you collect should be meaningful to you.
It doesn't matter if you're the only person in the world collecting from that one tiny little producer with a still the size of a kettlebell. As long as you love it, that's what matters.
Don't follow the crowd—be the chairperson of your collection's own fan club! Use your collection to make new friends and travel to new places!
If you're collecting from a particular distillery—go and do the tour. Meet the people who make your malt and become part of the distillery family. Make sure they think of you fondly as soon as they release a bottle that would be right for your collection.
Inside picture perfect Scottish Highlands cottage with summer house for sale
View gallery
Try to use your collection to support local independent businesses who have that personal touch—look at Holyrood in Edinburgh, Jackton in Glasgow, or any number of other small, enthusiastic producers up and down Scotland. In these places you know you'll always get a warm welcome, and every time you go back for another great experience, your collection will grow—along with the spectacular memories.
Alternatively, the whisky you collect might evoke special times with the amazing people in your life already.
Maybe you'll collect the whisky you first tried with your father when you turned 18. Maybe you'll collect the whisky that your spouse bought you on your first date. Maybe you'll collect the whisky that your colleagues bought you on the day you retired.
Only you can say—and the deeper and more personal the connection you have, the better and more valuable your collection will be.
3. Be totally prepared to collect
Look around your house—do you have an alcove or cabinet that would look a delight with a select few bottles of Raasay sparkling away on display?
Make sure that the site you choose for your bottles is safe and secure—no wobbly tables or lopsided shelves. Many precious, irreplaceable drams have lost the un-winnable battle between the force of gravity and a hard floor in the past.
If you have children, will your collection be beyond the reach of tiny, curious, grasping hands? Older children aren't always a safe bet either—don't be the person who returns from vacation to discover their five-figure antique Balvenie has been mixed with Red Bull and chugged in service of livening up a house party.
Whisky is more fragile than you might think. Make sure the spot where you keep your collection is out of direct sunlight and heat.
Check the humidity and consider evaporation—the angels famously take their share from the cask, but if you're not careful they'll start to poach from your bottles too. Keep a keen eye for cork shrinkage over time and consider using film to double-seal your bottles. Whisky isn't wine—keep those bottles stood soldier-straight up, pointing to the heavens, or risk your corks crumbling away.
Do you have a little extra stashed away on top of your savings to start your collection with? Make sure you have a budget in place before you start, and stick to it—and never ever be tempted to dip into bill money or the rainy day fund just for one more bottle. It's never worth it!
And don't forget to accessorise—if your collection is primarily for pouring (like the vast collection of Bruichaddich hosted at the Artisan restaurant in Wishaw), keep an elegant set of glasses ready to go at a moment's notice. Preparation is everything, and once people know you are a whisky collector, you'll never know when you might need to lead a last-minute toast!
4. Make peace with incompletion
Will your collection ever be complete? Well, if you're trying to collect every bottle of whisky ever released—probably not! Make peace with this ahead of time, and you'll know far greater happiness later on.
Be very wary of taking on too much—it's so tempting to start by saying 'I'll only collect the Kilchoman core range" . But then what about the limited releases? The members club bottles? The vintages? The single casks? The independent bottlers? It's all too easy to get overwhelmed and lose the end of the thread.
If you know you tend towards completionism, and you won't find any joy in falling short, then start by setting small, easily measurable goals, and stick to them. Pick a reasonably-priced, small, pre-numbered set of bottles—with a finite number to collect!
The Scottish Victorian spa town that was named 'best place to live'
View gallery
The Wolfburn Kylver series, for example—with a bottle for every letter of the runic alphabet, you know exactly how much space you'll need on your shelf from the word go!
And if you're going to uncork your collection and take drams as you go—a valid and valiant way to collect—then you need to prepare yourself for those eventual bottle kills. Mourn them, miss them—but never regret finishing them. They served you better in the emptying than they ever could have staying sealed.
5. Collect for other people
Ultimately, the story of whisky is one about people, not products. Collections should not be squirreled away, off-display—locked behind an iron door in a deep, dark cellar or bank vault, never to be seen again.
As our dedicated distillers will tell you, they make whisky so people can enjoy it—and no other reason. However you collect, your collection should bring you closer to others. You should be building friendships as well as collections!
Therefore, I encourage you to show off your collection to other collectors and enthusiasts. Open rare bottles and pour valuable nips for others to enjoy. Share stories deep into the night about the best distilleries you've seen and the far-flung places you've been in pursuit of that one 'holy grail' bottle.
The best collections in the world—like the Claive Vidiz Collection, held in the heart of Edinburgh—aren't the most complete, or the most valuable. They are the ones that have bought the most joy to the most people.
And if your collection can bring joy into other people's lives, then you will know that it was all worth the chase.