Dean Dechev

In 2015 while I was living happily as a freelancer, I realized that there was something missing in my life. My online job was going well, I was enjoying what I was doing and I was at the stage in my life when I was about to start a family. This was something I had wanted, but at the end of the day I felt that something wasn’t quite right. My daily routines were becoming stressful and I sensed the need for an activity to help me relax and switch off the monotony I was caught up in. It was then that I realised what I needed was a hobby.

I tried various things but none of them really seemed to be what I needed. That was until 2016 when I had a close encounter with single malt whisky. I had previously no interest in whisky but now I felt really captivated and I realized my interest lay in much more than just drinking and appreciating it. It wasn’t just a matter experimenting with different expressions. It was much bigger than that.

Since that time I have tasted and annotated more than 1000 different whisky expressions. I soon began attending events and live master classes held by celebrated experts in the whisky world and visited a number of distilleries in Scotland. I became so passionate that I began spending several hours every day rummaging around for information about whisky bottles. I first started by buying bottles to enjoy and to study, then this progressed to selecting whiskies for the purposes of collecting as investment. By the end of 2017 I already had a firm grounding in whisky collecting and investing in the bottles currently available on the market. I was fortunate enough to be able to get hold of bottles which were to increase in value up to 4-8 times within the space of only a couple of years.

During this period I was learning from my own mistakes, the mistakes of inexperienced whisky collectors and investors, and with rapidly growing knowledge and experience in the world of whisky. This handbook is a compilation of my knowledge and experience and will serve as a guide to lead every beginner through the world of whisky collecting that aims to become a better collector and investor.