I did a wee bit of research today into the value of two commodities:- whisky and gold. What I found was quite interesting.


Whisky

The total amount of whisky currently lying in bond in Scotland is the equivalent of 12 billion 70cl bottles.

The duty on a 70cl bottle of whisky is £11.50.

Therefore, the total value to the exchequer of all the whisky in Scotland is £138,000,000,000.



Gold

The total weight of the UK's gold reserves is 310.29 tonnes.

The current price of a ton of gold is £41,517,000

Therefore, the total value of the UK's gold reserves is £12,882,309,930.


It is also interesting to note that the UK's gold reserves are not all that substantial when compared to other major countries. For example, France's gold reserves are nearly 8 times as great as the UK's and Germany's are nearly 11 times greater. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have greater gold reserves than the UK.

It is equally interesting to note that the value of all the bonded whisky in Scotland is 10 times greater than the value of the UK's gold reserves.


No wonder they don't want us to have independence. And no wonder some people refer to whisky as liquid gold.