RUM as investment opportunity?

No. Rum is meant for drinking. Not investing. If you want to invest, go to a whiskey forum.

Some rums clearly appreciate in perceived value, but as far as an investment goes it seems to me that it would be an incredible hassle. Storing a case or two of something isn't a big deal, but once you get to more than that, it will take up a lot of space. There's a limited market for high end rum, never mind resale. And market forces may be difficult to predict. I say if you love rum and want to play with it (and have an easy resale market - this seems much more organized in the EU than in the US) go for it. But if you just see it as a commodity, trade Pokemon cards - they're much easier to store and sell.

Rum is just exploding at rumauctioneer since they have a location in Europe. I would rather use whisky as investment but since I like to drink rum myself, I cannot deny that my inventory is now also worth more. Some Velier Demerara bottlings doubled last year, like SVW 1996, UE30. There is only one problem and that is to buy these bottles. Rum is much more limited than whisky. Sometimes I manage to buy one of only 200 bottles and sometimes not. I use cryptocurrencies as an investment. You also would have earned more with stocks last year than with rum. That's why it's just a safeguard for me, which I also like to drink myself. If you are familiar with rum then go for it.

I myself asked about investing in rum on this forum several months ago. I tried to buy some bottles to hold and I'm watching and boring down the prices of collectible rums since half a year ago. Here are some of my thoughts: -rum investment is subject to high fees. If you buy on auction it is around 10%, shipping is around 30 EUR and shipment insurance is 3%. Conventional investments like gold, oil, commodities or crypto are subject to fees below 1%. -there are no conventional market measures and the transactions are hard to track. You need to pay a lot of effort, watching auctions and browsing shops regularly, not to mention accessing private collectors on fb and so on. It is just difficult to say how much you will get if you decide to sell at given time. The rarer the bottle the less price data available.-if you don't put reserve price on auction you can be unlucky to sell very low. No such problems appear when you sell on EBay or whiskymarket. -regulations of your country can really destroy your investing plan. In Poland you are generally not allowed to bring expensive alcohol to the country from outside the EU. You can't even order online from the GB after Brexit. You need a special importer permission, which requires running a company, not to mention paying excise and importing taxes. For "personal use" you can only bring up to 1l below 340EUR in your plane luggage. Of course you can declare lower value but if it gets damaged you will not get your invested money back from the insurance. -it occupies much space. I have since 30 bottles of rums and it's already a full cabinet. -maintainance not as demanding as wine but you still need to watch for the corks -price growth of certain limited editions is almost guaranteed-you are doing a favor to the future run enthusiasts whom you hold the bottles for. They will be lucky to try a vintage rum. -rum market is similar to what whisky market was 15 years ago. I also expect it will be worth more and grow very fast. Even the most expensive rums are still relatively cheap. This all is why I invested in many things (including, as Vomi suggested, crypto) but I will more likely drink the rums I bought some day in the future. I just buy them now before they get too expensive.

vomi1011 I invest in crypto too and yeah they are more yeasy a worthy, but they are just numbers, i more like rum and culture around it, because it looks luxury, you can hold it in your hands, or just be satisfyed of design and maybe that's the thing... rum is much limited and that's why i found it like a good investment oportunity, maybe one day it will be on the same level as whiskey nowadays, so why not invest already today? :)

If you like rum it's an even better investment then. I just read this article, found it here in the news section: https://www.gearpatrol.com/food/a36407200/bourbon-whiskey-drinkers-switching-rum/ Very interesting, I already heard that many whisky collectors are switching to rum. That's why the prices will rise further.

Anything you would recommend to get? In addition to Caroni, Demeraras and Foursquare?

Hampden high ester rums. Especially the old stuff. The 10y estate LROK was released at 47% for 125€. I was surprised by this price. I think that Hampden LROK birds were cheap, they were at cask strength. Old Monymusks, New Yarmouths, Long Ponds. Old Damoiseau bottlings. Rhum Liberation bottlings. Everything that is old.

If you buy right bottles you can get more appreciation than gold, way more. Do your homework, collect unique bottles of the popular brands. Find how to buy from the first hands. I buy three bottles, one to drinking, one for sale short/mid term, one for sale by my kids after I pass away.

I wouldnt invest in rum as a random person. But as rum enthisiast i wouldnt mind holding more bottles than i can consume short term. If the prices go up, fine. If not perfectly fine (stays affordable). Me and rum are friends with benefits.

I saw a beautiful collection of rums recently. If something starts, it is ideal to start.

Nice collection! I recently bought Habitation Hampden LROK 2010, CARONI 15 y, Plantation ITP Extreme no.3.

The 2010 HV 6y was sold at a better price than the Estate LROK. I'm glad I have three bottles left. Caroni is always a good buy. I'm searching for Savanna Maputo now, found it as a bundle with three other white Savannas.😕

Well, I have two bottles of Zacapa 30. It was around 100€ in 2006 and is now around 500€. As I rated the Zacapa 30 in January 2020, 500€ was my prediction for the next few years. I bought a bottle for 230€ back then.Royal was around 190€ in 2020 and is now around 270€. Royal would cost between 800€ and 1500€ in 20 years. Many cannot imagine such prices. But the rum market is developing very quickly, it will be a similar development to whisky.

HGML mark, I have the RA from the same year. It's on sale right now. https://www.rumundco.de/rum-artesanal-jamaica-high-ester-hd-1983/2019-05l I think that are the oldest Hampdens.

absolute champ!

Has anyone been getting online ads to invest as a 'group' in whiskey? It seems like there are professional firms now creating something like a fund structure and buying whiskey in bulk they think will appreciate that specialize in evaluating, storing, and selling whiskey (the hard parts). In theory, whiskey already has such a huge customer base there's probably more of an existing market. With rum being newer on the collecting scene maybe it has more upside compared to other spirits. Maybe a RR member wants to become our resident rum investing expert and help pool some member investment cash :)

@Andy What are the conditions, which bottles or barrels does the fund buy?

Andy: sounds like a nice idea, I think a group of us who already follow the prices can discuss the investment strategies and have a joint funds. At the moment there is a kind of a wall between the EU and UK so joining forces could help us to overcome this. I'm absolutely in! BTW, have your ever thought about RR's exclusive bottlings?

I'm not suggesting I'd buy bottles/barrels, just what I could imagine someone from RR putting together a group like whiskey seems to have so all of us could pool our funds and invest in rum :) I haven't seriously considered making RR exclusive bottlings, but I know there's a place in the Netherlands that creates custom bottles - if enough RR members would pre-commit to buying bottles of a certain type I could certainly look into getting something unique bottled. With the testing kit we do have distribution relationships in US/EU so getting bottles to members would be easy.

A simple rum flip from RumHunter.😁https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbP7GPtRWps&t=15s&ab_channel=DiaryofaRumHunter

Nice video. So the trick here is basically to get the bottle on a bargain price and sell it to broader community. I used to watch some niche whisky auctions where several rums also appeared occasionally. As the bidders were almost exclusively whisky enthusiasts, it was possible to hunt down some rums for low prices. Unfortunately Brexit closed these doors for me as all the auctions were in the UK.

Or you can buy very old rum that is available now. E.g. Hampden 1983. You won't get that in a few years. Such an old Hampden will probably no longer bottled. It's like with the old Veliers, they will explode.

Sure, but this is not what gets paid off in one month time. How long do you usually good a bottle before reselling? It's also important to notice fees, Rum Hunter paid almost 1/3 of what he earned in fees.

I'm taking an approach that I got from a reviewer. "Buy now what you want to drink in five years." This is my time horizon. If I suddenly have bottles that have become very expensive, I will sell some of them and buy good bottlings again. I don't necessarily want to drink 1k bottlings. I prefer to drink in the 100-200 range, which is more reasonable. I also prefer to invest in stocks and cryptos, rum is just a hobby. If it's completely refinanced and I can drink for free, then it's a good thing. This is my approach.Try to buy a Hampden from 1983 in five years or a Velier Caroni.  😅 

The Hampden 1983 you guys are referring to is the Kill Devil one?

https://tastingbros.com/2021/06/25/happy-birthday/ There are four bottlings of 83. They are all good, I bought RA, the cheapest one. It could be the best but I think there is not that much difference.

kinda hard to find the other ones!

Three of them are available, Kill Devil (expert24), Artesanal (rumundco) and Corman Collins: https://japanwhiskys.com/rum-rhum/518/hampden-35-jamaica-rum-1983-corman-collins The last one is hard to find I think.

the Rum Artesanal 1983 doesn't say Hampden on the label, why is that?

Sometimes the bottlers buy a cask and the distiller arrange that he cannot be named. That happens often, Mden Rum 95 is one of those.

Vomi1011, yes I'm familiar with that practice but how would one know for sure, or be able to confirm?

We know Dominik, it's the entrepreneur. And sometimes he provides a sample to popular reviewer. In case of Mden someone had to try first.

I'm not playing the game of paying insane prizes for just a bottle of rum. Rum' s here to drink - neat. Full stop.

@taster Same. And i really do not get why "investors" even flip bottles they just purchased for minor profits. I  decided to generally not to participate in overly hyped releases anymore. There must be many financial naive guys out there. Because there is no explanation why someone would do all this work and take all the risks for, i dont know, lets say potential 10-50€ net profit.  You are feeding the auction house with 20-30% fees every time you decide to flip. Do you guys even have some logic in this? If some one manages to buy a collectible bottle of rum that will go from e.g 150€ to 1500€ longterm. How does it make sense to flip it immedeatly and hope to earn a few euros? If this bottle is not collectible you will even loose money. And if it is you should keep it because the value will rise fast over the years. And this is what investors want. I can only doubt this peoples minds... However 

People flip everything, they are not investors. PS5, sneakers, spirits, watches, real estate, pokemon cards, cars, it's all traded. The biggest casino is on the stock exchanges. We don't have to complain, there is enough rum available for drinking. Meanwhile, bottlings are coming out for 1k, see Samaroli and Appleton 84. 

It will get more expensive, a certain group of people with a lot of buying power will be able to afford these bottlings. In any case, my inventory is full and many new bottlings are not interesting to me from the price value ratio.

 

Please don't fuck up the market for normal rum drinkers by using rum as an investment. It ups the price and screws over normal consumers. The same thing has happened in the whisky world and it is horrible. Flippers and investers are absolute scum and should be tarred and feathered and chased out of town with pitchforks. 

Wolf Tone,

Couldn't be said better !👏🏼

At this point i remember the story/experiment where different ants live peacefully in a box until someone shake it. Then they start fighting each other for no reason. I dont get why i should hate the "investor" guy. Because this kind of speculation starts within our finance system. Within our system everybody is free to have property. Everybody is allowed to buy or sell property. Generally there is no problem with this. Wild speculation starts within our central banks policies. There always be some shady guys who ride on this. But they arent the ones to blame.

 

Toni: I agree that it starts elsewhere. The whole system we live in is deeply flawed. That is one of the many reasons that I am a member of two different political parties plus several extra-parliamentary organisations in my country that all work towards system change, especially in the financial markets.That being said, and politics aside, if you, as a rum enthusiast, don't see the problem with people flipping rum for profits, casually screwing over other rum drinkers, than you are part of the problem. It may be legal, but that doesn't make it moral, and it doesn't make it right.I am reminded myself of a quote by the famous Whisky writer Aeneas MacDonald, way back in 1930, who wrote: "For it cannot be maintained seriously that those who make the food and the drink of man are in the same category as mere commercial manufacturers. Theirs is a sacred, almost a priestly responsibility, which they cannot barter away for turnovers and dividends without betraying their trust as custodians of civilization."That goes, in my humble opinion, for both producers as well as consumers.

A simple solution is to stop consuming speculative goods. I don't care about house, car or whisky prices. Because I don't want to buy these goods. There is also no need to drink rum >100 euros per bottle, speculation usually takes place from this amount. But you can consume speculative rum with simple strategies.There is also a solution for financial markets: transaction taxes. Times are good, these are first world problems that are not really problems.

@Wolfe Tone Moral is very depending on the persons personal view and wont be discussed by me. Because it is pointless.  I do not see how morals will ever change basic human settings. I do not put my personal moral view in the discussion and do not value yours. I also do not want to be valued by your morals within a discussion. And as i stated above i also dont see any useful/positive outcome when some one decides to flip a bottle that he just purchased - even for the flipper himself. My point ist that i refuse to judge these guys. What does it (hate) change after all? 

@Vomi agree, these are 1.st world problems we discuss.