Become a shareholder of a whisky cask!

Preliminary words

Buying a cask from Teerenpeli will cost you about 5000-6000€ depending on the configuration. I would love to get a cask for myself but I don’t want to sit on 120 bottles of whisky all by myself. The idea with this group buy is to share the bottles of a cask so that everyone gets a much more manageable share of bottles.

I tried to do this once before but it failed. You can read about it here

Failed whisky cask group buy

The proposal

I want to host this whisky cask group buy transparently and fairly. I’m offering you a chance to own a part of the contents of a whisky cask. The upside with this arrangement is that this is an easy way for you to get a part of the cask. The downsides of this arrangement are that you are not as much in control as if you would buy a cask by yourself. What you trade in for control you’ll gain by getting to take part in this relatively cheap whisky cask ownership.

The distillate and cask

Cask: 65L ex-bourbon
Distillate: 61.7% Teerenpeli default “vakiotisle”

There is an option for a smoky distillate but in my opinion non-smoky option would be better as the smoke flavour is often too dominating and covers other flavours. Don’t get me wrong, I like smoky whisky but non-smoky ones are in my opinion more elegant.

The final whisky will be bottled as cask strength. This gives you as the consumer more ways to enjoy the whisky. 61.7% or whatever the ABV will be at the end of the process.

Prices

There are no certain set prices because the final cost will vary depending on how much whisky there is to bottle and what the taxation looks like that year the bottling happens.

Cask: 450€ (we share this cost between the shares)
Distillate: 18€/L
Taxes and other expenses: about 25€/0.5L

According to the estimate, everything together would cost around 5000-6000€. There will be a total of 10 shares of the cask.

1/10th share:

Price: 500-600€
Estimated bottles: 10-12 bottles cask strength

Payments

The payment will happen in two stages. The initial payment will be about half of the total sum of your share(s) and is needed to be paid for the process to start. The other half will be paid when the bottling has been done.

Schedule

2022 Q1
I’ll be making the order right away when all the shares have been taken. The first payment will happen on my call and be paid to me as I’m the middleman between the shareholders and the distillery.

Between 2022 - 2032
I’ll keep you up to date on how our whisky has changed and opinions on if it should be bottled at that point or not. This is a waiting game. I’ll be trying a sample of the whisky once a year and report to you about the progress. Various distilleries have said that smaller casks like this take maybe 4-5 years to mature, but we can go up to 10 years if we wish so. I’ll be making decision calls on a yearly basis where the majority decides if we let the whisky mature for longer or not.

Some date in the years 2025 - 2032
Bottling time! This is when the second payment will happen. I live in the Helsinki region so you could pick up the bottles or alternatively ask me to ship the bottles to you (at your expense).

Transparency, uneven shares, force majeure and other details

I want to be very open with this whole cask sharing experience. What I’ve learned from previous group buys is that communication is key and there is no reason why I should hide some information. Let’s be honest and open, and everything will go smoothly. My interest is to share my passion for whisky with you, in any problematic cases you can count on that I’m working for our best interest.

Uneven amount of bottles

There will most likely be an uneven amount of bottles. I’ll be taking 2 bottles for myself as a small reward for hosting this cask sharing experience, but any more bottles will be raffled out. The chosen ones will get 1 bottle more than the others but that will also affect their last payment with a slightly increased price. This way this is fair for all participants and no one is paying anyone else’s whiskys.

The cask

We are buying the cask for ourselves for this cask sharing experience, hence it is also ours at the end of this experience. I have some use for the cask so I’m suggesting that the cask is also given to me at the end of the process as a small additional reward for hosting this experience.

If the whisky has gone bad

We have the option to cancel the deal with Teerenpeli and pay a fine for the storage that it has required. This is something that will be done if there is something clearly wrong with the whisky, the final decision is done by voting. In this case, you’ll receive a part of your initial investment back. This is a potential risk, however, Teerenpeli is experienced in making whisky so this most likely won’t be a problem.

If something happens to me

You can never know about life and what happens. I’ll be sharing all the information about the cask sharing with one of the participants so that in the worst possible situation, you still should be able to get the whisky.

The name of the whisky and the label

This is something that we need to think about once we’ve gotten the process started. I have some designer contacts who might be able to give us a hand at designing a cool looking label for the bottles. The design work won’t be free so I feel that we could budget around 200€ or perhaps a few bottles for this. This is something that we decide once we have gotten the process started.

Your responsibility

You are responsible to keep me up to date with your latest contact information and being active in the voting. If you are not voting, your vote won’t be counted. It is also important that you are active and do the payments as I request. Failing with payment one will result in kicking you out, failing with the second (after bottling) payment and not being in touch results in losing your investment. These terms are somewhat harsh but I shouldn’t need to hunt you down. If you just keep an eye on your email you shouldn’t have any problem with this.

After-bottling neglected whiskeys will change ownership to me if there is no contact and the second payment is left undone.

Trying out samples

This is something that we could do when we think the whiskey is close to done. This mean that around 4-5 years of aging, we’ll get to sample the whisky as a group and decide if we want to age it further or bottle it. The sampling would happen in Lahti.

Status updates and voting

I’ll keep you up to date with the situation of the whisky, give my own opinion as well as the opinion of Teerenpeli. The updates will be yearly, or whenever there is something new to tell. Any decision for bottling or cancelling the batch will be done by voting, each share representing one vote. The voting won’t be anonymous but rather just in a simple form by email where you state your own opinion for the options given, your personal vote won’t however be shared with the other participants.

In a case of a standstill (50/50 votes), my vote will decide the decision.

Participate

I want you to fill out this form to participate in this cask sharing experience since it’s much easier for me to handle your information if I have it in one place. Only participate if you are 100% sure you are in and have the monetary situation allows for it now and some years from now.