A personal investment opportunity?

It was bought on a whim by an expat who then forgot about it for more than three decades until they were reminded by Macallan that it was still maturing in the warehouse.

Bids for the rare cask have already reached 170,000 dollars (£130,000) since the auction went live at 7pm on Friday and are expected to soar before the sale on the Whisky Hammer site ends on Sunday.

Scotch “is a very small portion of all the whiskies which are being enjoyed [in India]”, he said. “The midterm target would be to at least double the size of the market. And with the size of the population of the middle class, I’ve seen the appetite is extremely high. It should become one of the top markets.”

Trade between the UK and India was worth £18.5bn in 2020 but has stagnated over the past decade. By comparison trade between the UK and Belgium in the same year was £38bn.

India accounts for 1.2 per cent of British exports — it is the UK’s 21st-biggest export market — and UK companies sell more to countries including Singapore, Sweden and Norway.

London and New Delhi last year agreed a UK-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership to boost investment and jobs as part of a plan to double trade by 2030. But analysts remain sceptical that a long-mooted free trade deal could be finalised in time for general elections in both countries in 2024.

New Delhi’s longstanding demand for easier access to British visas for Indian students and skilled workers has also proved politically contentious in the UK.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, UK trade secretary, has said that “everything is on the table” as the countries look to finalise a deal.

Sam Lowe, director of trade at Flint Global, said the UK had already given India “a lot of what they want” on immigration after Brexit and that a trade deal was possible.

The removal of the so-called Tier 2 cap on skilled workers in December 2020 and the UK’s decision to put Indian workers on the same footing as their EU counterparts was crucial.

But India is expected to push for greater access, to the discomfort of some Conservative MPs and immigration hawks in the Home Office.

“Boris Johnson could do this, but it would involve a bit of a fight with the Home Office,” Lowe said, adding that any trade deal between India and the UK might initially be “quite shallow”.

But Lowe said the politics “were not in the right place” for an early and ambitious agreement, given New Delhi’s refusal to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Indian authorities have long been wary of opening up domestic industry with free trade deals but the country recently signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates and an interim deal with Australia. Most whisky consumed in India is produced locally and high levies on imported liquor are an important source of revenue. But the country has also long taken an antagonistic view of the alcohol industry, with outright prohibition imposed in several states. The Scotch Whisky Association said it hoped the two countries could reach an interim “early harvest” agreement ahead of a full trade deal.

“With their consumer-strategic-brand and commercial expertise, I  am confident that we have found the right partner to drive and support the next and most significant stage of the Eden Mill journey.”

Eden Mill, which was founded by Mr Miller and Tony Kelly in 2012, hopes to open the new distillery in late 2022.

Meanwhile, the investment will also enable the company to expand its distribution in the UK and internationally.

Paul Skipworth, managing partner at Inverleith LLP, hailed the deal as a “fantastic addition to Inverleith’s portfolio of premium, consumer brands.

He said: “Eden Mill St Andrews has one of the most exciting futures within premium gin and whisky and we are delighted to be supporting the realisation of its vision.

So imagine what could be sold with lower tariffs. There’s a big prize from getting them removed, or at least slashed. And that puts whisky firmly on the table of the talks, which began this week, aimed at a free trade agreement between the UK and India.

Oxford Economics doesn’t imagine what could be sold: it models it. Commissioned by the Scotch Whisky Association, it assumes that the import tariffs come down to around 25%.

With that, it estimates £1.2bn more exports within five years, and that could generate 1,300 jobs in the UK.

And part of the pitch to the Indian government is that such trade liberalisation would only take Scotch from 2% to to around 6% of the nation’s consumption, while boosting Delhi’s government revenues by more than £3bn. That way, everyone wins.

But trade liberalisation isn’t that simple, particularly in India. One of the first problems is getting to an agreement on the valuation of an import consignment before it even leaves the port. That can take a very long time, and a free trade deal would have to simplify that process.

The application of rules can be, let’s say, unpredictable. One key part of any free trade deal would be a court of arbitration. But as Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy found (it recently rebranded as Capricorn), such existing international rules on investment can get stuck in Indian bureaucracy and legal obstacles.

Having developed the country’s biggest oil field and sold its stake, Cairn’s attempts to reclaim at least $1bn owed by the Delhi tax authorities only began to make progress after it started action to seize the government’s overseas assets.

“If you’re just getting started, the biggest thing is to find a trusted whisky merchant who can guide you through the process. For example, they should give you a sample first before you buy a cask. A lot of merchants these days try to offer lists and prices but they don’t let you taste what you’re going to buy. That’s the first red flag.”

“The second thing is to make sure that they have all the correct licenses and ownership paperwork to be able to properly transfer a cask into your name. If you live outside the United Kingdom, you need a company to be your third party duty representative with HMCR (Her Majesty’s Custom and Revenues). You should be able to ask a merchant for their third party duty rep license, and get a delivery order that is signed by the warehouse and the seller.”

“Unfortunately, there are some people out there that are taking advantage of newcomers. If you’re dealing with a whisky merchant that is trying to push you into it, don’t fall for these sales tactics. That’s another red flag.”